The government has appointed Kou Hoi In, former president of the Legislative Assembly (AL), as the chairman of the board of directors of public broadcaster TDM, succeeding António José de Freitas, who heads the Macau Holy House of Mercy (SCMM).
Kou’s appointment, which took effect on Wednesday, was formalised through an executive order by Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai published in the Official Gazette (BO) that day.
The executive order, signed by Sam on Wednesday last week, has appointed the new term of the board’s nine members, including its chairman (Kou) and a vice-chairperson. While three of them have been newly appointed to the board, including Kou, the other six have been reappointed.
The nine members’ appointments, which started on Wednesday, are scheduled to last one year.
Kou has retired from the Legislative Assembly as he did not seek re-election for its current term, which started on October 16.
Kou had headed the legislature since July 2019 until his retirement from the hemicycle.
Kou, born in January 1953, had been a Macau lawmaker since 1991 when Macau was still under temporary Portuguese administration.
Kou joined the legislature in 1991 when he was directly elected by popular vote in a by-election. He was re-elected as a directly-elected lawmaker in 1992 and 1996.
After the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) on December 20, 1999, the first legislative elections were held in 2001 when Kou ran in the indirect election, representing the business sector. Since then, Kou had been an indirectly-elected lawmaker, representing the business sector.
Kou, 72, is currently the sole Macau member of the elite Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing.
Kou, a veteran businessman, has been an NPC deputy from Macau since March 2003. He was elevated to the NPC Standing Committee in March 2023.
According to Sam’s executive order on Wednesday, Lorman Lo Song Man has been reappointed as the vice-chairwoman of TDM’s board of directors.
The other members who have been reappointed to the board comprise Un Weng Kuai, Vong Vai Hung, Cheang Kong Pou, Cristina Ho Hoi Leng, and Vong Hin Fai.
In addition to Kou, Sam’s executive order has also newly appointed Lee Chong Cheng and Casimiro de Jesus Pinto to TDM’s board of directors.
Lee, a former legislator, is currently the president of the influential Macau Federation of Trade Unions (commonly known as Gung Luen in Cantonese). He is currently also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) from Macau.
Pinto retired from the civil service earlier this year. He was previously a department chief of the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP). He also worked as a deputy secretary-general of the Macau-based Permanent Secretariat of Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macao).
The forum is known as Forum Macao for short.
Lee and Pinto have succeeded Inês Chan Lou and Ma Kam Keong on TDM’s board of directors.
Chan had been the director of the Government Information Bureau (GCS) since July 2020 until June 30 this year when her appointment was not renewed. She, a civil servant from the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO), retired from the civil service in October.
Ma retired from the Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) in 2020 where he was a member of its Administrative Committee.
This file photo shows Kou Hoi In, the then president of the Legislative Assembly (AL), casting his ballot in the 2025 direct and indirect legislative elections on September 14 at the polling station in the Macao Polytechnic University’s (MPU) Sports Stadium in Zape. – Photo: GCS
