The Permanent Secretariat of Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macao) held a Spring Festival reception yesterday where Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai pledged in a speech that the local government will continue to fully leverage Macau’s unique advantages to ensure its important role as a bridge between the two sides.
The Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries is known as Forum Macao for short.
Forum Macao’s Permanent Secretariat is headquartered in Macau.
In addition to Sam, Forum Macao’s Permanent Secretariat Secretary-General Ji Xianzheng also made a speech during yesterday’s reception.
Alongside Sam and Ji, the reception, held at Forum Macao’s headquarters near Macau Tower, was also attended by six other senior representatives on the rostrum, namely Edmund Ho Hau Wah, Macau’s first chief executive and now vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, Central People’s Government Liaison Office in Macau Deputy Director Lyu Yuyin, Foreign Ministry Deputy Commissioner Sun Xiangyang, Legislative Assembly (AL) President Kou Hoi In, Court of Final Appeal (TUI) President Song Man Lei, and Secretary for Economy and Finance Anton Tai Kin Ip.
Forum Macao comprises China, its initiator and prime mover, and nine Portuguese-speaking countries – Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde (Cape Verde), Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste (East Timor).
Forum Macao accounts for about one-fifth (21 percent) of the world’s around eight billion people. Its 10 member states are located on four (Africa, Asia, Europe and South America) of the world’s seven continents. Two of its members (China and Brazil) are members of BRICS. Six (Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and Cabo Verde) are members of the African Union (AU), while Portugal is a member of the European Union (EU) and Brazil is a member of the Southern American trade bloc Mercosul/Mercosur. Timor-Leste is an ASEAN candidate member state. Except Portugal, all the others belong to the Global South.
In his speech, Sam noted that Forum Macao was launched in October 2003 in Macau, with its Permanent Secretariat established here in 2004. Since then, Sam noted, Forum Macao has held six Ministerial Conferences in Macau, during which six action plans for economic and trade cooperation were signed.
Forum Macao’s sixth Ministerial Conference was held in April last year. Due to the three-year COVID-19 pandemic and schedule issues, Forum Macao’s previous, fifth Ministerial Conference, supposed to be held at three-year intervals, took place in Macau in October 2016.
As an important platform for cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries (PSCs), Sam said, Forum Macao has been playing a significant role in fostering cooperation between the two sides in fields such as economy, trade, culture, and education.
Sam noted that the total import and export of goods between China and PSCs continued to grow last year, amounting to US$225.179 billion, during which fruitful results were also achieved in exchanges and cooperation between the two sides in various fields such as humanities, science and technology, education, health, and tourism, the chief executive said.
Sam also expressed his gratitude to Forum Macao’s Permanent Secretariat for its extensive work and important role in promoting trade and investment, human resources cooperation and cultural exchange between China and PSCs as well as in leveraging Macau’s role as a service platform for commercial and trade cooperation between the two sides.
Sam underlines President Xi’s ‘important instructions’
Sam noted that President Xi Jinping paid an inspection visit to Macau in December last year to attend the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Macau’s return to the motherland and the inauguration ceremony of the Macau Special Administrative Region’s (SAR) sixth-term government where he gave various important instructions, including his hope for Macau to build itself into a platform for higher-standard opening up.
In his speech yesterday, Sam quoted Xi’s requirement for Macau to further step up two-way opening, facilitate all-round mutually-beneficial cooperation with PSCs, play an active role in high-quality Belt and Road (B&R) cooperation, make more friends across the world, and act as an important bridge for the nation’s high-standard opening up.
Xi has required Macau, as a place where Chinese and Western cultures merge, to promote international people-to-people exchanges, better present Macau and China as a whole to the world, and turn the city into an important window of exchanges between Chinese and Western civilisations, Sam pointed out.
Sam pledged that his government, in compliance with the spirit of Xi’s important instructions, will continue to support and collaborate with Forum Macao’s Permanent Secretariat in fully leveraging Macau’s unique advantages to effectively enhance its role as a bridge between China and PSCs.
Sam underlined that his government will ensure the implementation of the results made and consensus reached at Forum Macao’s sixth Ministerial Conference, further expanding cooperation between China and PSCs in areas such as trade, investment and industrial development, increasing the size of economic and trade cooperation between the two sides, and driving their cooperation to new heights.
Ji stresses Forum Macao’s ‘promising prospects’
Meanwhile, delivering his speech, Ji noted that many high-level reciprocal visits were conducted between China and all the nine PSCs last year, fostering and consolidating bilateral relations.
Ji underlined that during Forum Macao’s sixth Ministerial Conference held in April last year, the respective ministers of China and the nine PSCs pledged to jointly ensure the implementation of the Action Plan for Economic and Trade Cooperation (2024-2027), after which a follow-up meeting was held in December last year in Beijing, attended by officials from about 30 public entities from the mainland authorities and the Macau government, with the aim of studying how to ensure the effective implementation of the results made at Forum Macao’s 6th Ministerial Conference.
Ji also noted that trade in goods between China and PSCs reached a record high of US$225.2 billion last year.
Ji also underlined that since its establishment, Forum Macao has made significant contributions to promoting friendly exchanges and cooperation between China and PSCs through the organisation of six Ministerial Conferences and the implementation of six action plans for economic and trade cooperation.
Ji said that looking at the world, China currently remains an important engine of global economic growth, because of which prospects for cooperation between China and PSCs will continue to be promising.
Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai (left) and Forum Macao’s Permanent Secretariat Secretary-General Ji Xianzheng address yesterday’s Spring Festival reception at Forum Macao Complex. – Photos: GCS
