The consultative committee of the Guangdong-Macau In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin convened a meeting last week, where Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee Vice Chairman Edmund Ho Hau Wah, a member of the committee, suggested that the zone should make greater achievements in the Macau-Hengqin integrated development in four aspects, according to a statement published on the zone’s official website.
According to the statement on Thursday, the meeting, which was held on Zhuhai’s Hengqin island earlier that day, was the second meeting of the zone’s first-term consultative committee.
The zone was inaugurated in September 2021.
The Guangdong-Macau In-depth Cooperation Zone’s top decision-making body is its administrative committee, which is jointly headed by Guangdong Governor Wang Weizhong and Macau Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng.
The zone’s executive committee, which is run under the administrative committee, is the body tasked with the zone’s daily functioning and execution of tasks. The executive committee is headed by Macau Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong.
Consultative committee’s members
The zone’s first-term consultative committee consists of 36 appointed members, comprising 25 from the mainland, 10 from Macau and one from Hong Kong. The members include experts and scholars in various fields, leading figures from different industries, and other civil-society representatives, who were appointed on September 27 last year. After they received their appointment certificates in a ceremony that day, the committee then held its first meeting.
Edmund Ho, Macau’s first and second-term chief executive from 1999 to 2009, is one of the consultative committee’s 36 members. He chairs the committee.
Other members from Macau include community leader Tina Ho Teng Iat, the sister of Ho Iat Seng, University of Macau (UM) Rector Song Yonghua, and legal scholar Gabriel Tong Io Cheng, who now heads the UM Faculty of Law.
According to Thursday’s statement, 25 of the consultative committee’s members attended its second meeting held that day.
Officials from the mainland and Macau related to zone’s development also attended Thursday’s meeting.
‘Special area’
Lei said during the meeting that the zone is a “special area” that is a part of the nation’s development strategy, adding that President Xi Jinping and the central government are paying close attention to Hengqin’s development.
During last week’s meeting, Nie Xinping, a deputy director of the zone’s executive committee, reported Hengqin’s latest developments. Nie, who also heads the Hengqin Office of the Guangdong Provincial People’s Government, also briefed the meeting about the zone’s ongoing work on studying opinions and suggestions raised by members of the consultative committee during its first meeting in September last year as well as the zone’s ongoing implementation of the respective measures launched in response to certain opinions and suggestions raised during the first meeting.
The statement also said that during last week’s meeting, members of the consultative committee raised various constructive opinions and suggestions on the zone’s development in various aspects such as industrial development, the aggregation of highly-qualified professionals, business environment, the convergence of regulations, and innovations on improving its legal system.
Edmund Ho’s 4 aspects
During the meeting, which was held at Sumjoy Hengqin Tianmu Hotel, Edmund Ho said that the zone should make greater achievements in the Macau-Hengqin integrated development in four aspects, according to the statement.
Firstly, according to the statement, Ho said that the zone should firmly remember the original intent to develop Hengqin and submit “an exam paper with satisfactory results” to the central authorities by achieving the high-quality completion of the zone’s first-phase development goals.
Secondly, Ho said that the zone should accelerate the shaping of its core competitiveness, comprehensively enhancing its ability to attract and gather international high-quality development resources and factors of production.
Thirdly, Ho said that the zone should ensure the effective coordination between its population growth and aggregation of highly-qualified professionals, with the aim of better supporting the development of new industries and the creation of a hub for highly-qualified professionals.
Fourthly, according to the statement, Ho said that the zone should create a transparent, stable, and predictable first-class business environment, with the aim of enabling businesspeople, investors and other organisations to be well informed about Hengqin’s new development achievements, from which they could also benefit.
This handout group photo released on the Guangdong-Macau In-depth Cooperation Zone’s website on Thursday shows Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee Vice Chairman Edmund Ho Hau Wah (front, centre) and Macau Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong (front, seventh from right) posing on the sidelines of Thursday’s meeting of the zone’s consultative committee. Lei heads the zone’s executive committee.
