Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon, who is also the spokesman for the government’s top advisory Executive Council, has announced that the local government has finished drafting a bill enabling the Light Rail Transit (LRT) East Line to be extended to the Qingmao pedestrian border checkpoint by running under the Barrier Gate.
Cheong made the announcement during a press conference at Government Headquarters on Friday. The bill will be submitted to the Legislative Assembly (AL) in due course for debate, review and vote.
The ongoing LRT East Line project, which got off the ground in October last year, is a 7.7-kilometre-long section connecting the Barrier Gate checkpoint at the peninsula’s northern tip and the Taipa Ferry Terminal via the Zone A and Zone E1 land reclamation areas. The East Line will cross the sea between Zone A and Zone E1 through an undersea tunnel.
On December 29 last year, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee in Beijing passed a decision to authorise the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) to exercise jurisdiction over a land and maritime area southeast of Zhuhai’s Gongbei checkpoint, enabling the Macau government to lease the area from Zhuhai so that the LRT East Line can be extended to the Qingmao checkpoint.
With the leasehold to take effect in due course, the LRT station to serve the Barrier Gate checkpoint, i.e., the ES1 station of the ongoing LRT East Line project, can be expanded so that it will be closer to the Barrier Gate checkpoint, making it a shorter walking distance for LRT passengers between the station and the checkpoint.
The local government noted early this year that with the NPC Standing Committee’s authorisation of the Macau government’s lease of the 3,700-square-metre V-shaped area from Zhuhai, the ES1 station’s design will be revised so that it will be built closer to the Barrier Gate checkpoint.
Despite being located east of the Barrier Gate checkpoint, the V-shaped area is currently still under Zhuhai’s jurisdiction.
During Friday’s press conference, Cheong noted that with the aim of getting the NPC Standing Committee’s decision off the ground, the local government has drafted a bill that will enable it to formally administer the V-shaped area in compliance with the MSAR’s laws.
The bill is officially known as “Establishing the Fundamental Norms for the Application of the Macau Special Administrative Region Law on the Respective Land and Maritime Area Southeast of Zhuhai’s Gongbei Checkpoint in Guangdong Province”.
This undated file aerial photo released by the local government shows the V-shaped plot next to the Barrier Gate checkpoint indicated by the blue area.
