Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai attended a reception in celebration of the National Day of Portugal yesterday where he said that Macau’s Portuguese community has been consistently making significant contributions to the healthy development of various undertakings in the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR), pledging that the MSAR government will continue to safeguard the local civil society’s multicultural characteristics and to promote various development initiatives while working hard to improve local residents’ well-being including those in the Portuguese community, according to a statement by the Government Information Bureau (GCS) last night.
The reception was held at the “Bela Vista” Residence, on Penha Hill, of the Consul-General of Portugal in Macau and Hong Kong yesterday evening where Sam delivered a speech.
According to the statement, Sam expressed his gratitude for the local Portuguese community’s unwavering support for, and cooperation with, the MSAR government exercising of its administration and governance, as well as their contributions to the city’s socioeconomic development.
Sam noted that the profound historical ties between Portugal and Macau remain visibly significant to this day, adding that June 10 also marked the commemoration of Portugal’s great poet Luís de Camões.
Based on tradition, Camões is believed to have lived in Macau for a few years in the mid-16th century. He died in Lisbon on June 10, 1580. His birthday is unknown.
Sam noted that the Chinese and Portuguese cultures have coexisted harmoniously in Macau – one of China’s gateways to the outside world – for centuries, adding that this unique status, as emphasised by President Xi Jinping in his speech made during his inspection visit to Macau last year, has made Macau “the only place in the world with both Chinese and Portuguese as its official languages”.
Sam underlined that China and Portugal have been maintaining sound cooperation and friendly ties, characterised by mutual respect and appreciation for each other’s sociocultural differences, setting a model for bilateral exchanges. He said that cooperation and exchanges between the MSAR and Portugal continues to deepen in various fields such as trade, technological and scientific innovation, human resources, healthcare, education, and culture, fully leveraging Macau’s distinctive advantages.
Sam also quoted Xi’s requirement for 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.
Consequently, Sam underlined, the local government will remain committed to building a higher-level platform for opening-up, enhancing two-way openness with Portuguese-speaking countries, fostering comprehensive, mutually-beneficial cooperation, and further enriching Macau’s role as a platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries.
Sam pledged that with the central government’s strong support, the MSAR government will continue to comprehensively, accurately and unswervingly implement the principles of “One Country, Two Systems” and the MSAR Basic Law while ensuring that Macau’s capitalist system and way of life, its status as an international free port and separate customs territory, and its European continental law system will remain unchanged in the long term.
Sam said he expects peoples in China and Portugal to continue strengthening friendship and cooperation and jointly seizing new opportunities through emerging platforms with the aim of enhancing collaboration between Portuguese-speaking countries, China, and the MSAR.
Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai (left) and Consul-General of Portugal in Macau and Hong Kong Alexandre Leitão toast each other during yesterday’s reception at the latter’s official residence on Penha Hill. – Photo: GCS
