‘Treat Hengqin’s affairs as Macau’s own’
Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai yesterday convened and chaired the sixth meeting of the Leadership Group for Promoting the Development of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, underlining the need to heed the spirit of last week’s special meeting held in Hengqin on advancing Hengqin’s development, according to a statement by the Macao Government Information Bureau (GCS) yesterday.
Sam also reaffirmed the need to treat Hengqin’s affairs as if they were Macau’s own.
The meeting, held at Government Headquarters, was attended by Sam’s five policy secretaries and his chief-of-cabinet Chan Kak.
Sam, who took office on December 20, 2024, set up the leadership group in February last year.
According to the statement, yesterday’s meeting focused on the spirit of last week’s special meeting held in Hengqin on advancing the development of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.
The special meeting held in Hengqin on Thursday last week was chaired by Xia Baolong, who heads both the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office (HKMWO) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) of the State Council. The special meeting was also attended by Sam, Guangdong Governor Meng Fanli, Central People’s Government Liaison Office in the MSAR Director Zheng Xincong, other HKMWO-HKMAO officials, officials from the central authorities’ relevant ministries and commissions, and other MSAR officials.
Last week’s special meeting in Hengqin
During yesterday’s meeting, according to the GCS statement, Sam noted that last week’s special meeting thoroughly studied the spirit of President Xi Jinping’s important instructions concerning Hengqin’s development and outlined how to put the spirit into practice.
Sam noted that last week’s special meeting focused on accelerating the implementation of the package of policy measures to further advance Hengqin’s development, supporting Macau in aligning with the nation’s 15th Five-Year Plan and ensuring the effective implementation of its 3rd Five-Year Plan, and elevating the development of Hengqin to a new level.
Sam raises 3 points for local officials’ Hengqin work
During yesterday’s meeting, Sam underlined the need to thoroughly study the spirit of Xia’s remarks made during last week’s special meeting. He raised three points aimed at ensuring the full implementation of the local government’s various initiatives to advance Hengqin’s development.
First, Sam said, it is essential to gain a full understanding of the significance of last week’s meeting, an important meeting held shortly before the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the in-depth cooperation zone. It was a high-level meeting attended by officials from a wide range of entities and spheres. All these have fully demonstrated the central authorities’ high degree of attention to Hengqin’s development, Sam underlined.
The 106-square-kilometre Hengqin Island in Zhuhai City has been officially known as the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin since its inauguration on September 17, 2021. The adjacent island is three times the size of the MSAR.
Second, Sam said, the opportunity presented by last week’s special meeting must be seized to accelerate the implementation of the package of policy measures to further advance Hengqin’s development.
Third, Sam said, comprehensive plans must be drawn up for the next steps to drive all aspects of work concerning Hengqin’s development with greater vigour.
‘Macau and Hengqin on one chessboard’
Sam also reaffirmed that local officials must treat Hengqin’s affairs as if they were Macau’s own, urging them to adopt a “Macau and Hengqin on one chessboard” mindset in their work on advancing the construction of the local government’s four future large-scale projects and boosting Macau-Hengqin integrated development through the alignment of rules and mechanisms.
Meanwhile, before chairing the special meeting in Hengqin on Thursday last week, Xia paid a fact-finding visit to Jiangmen, one of the nine Guangdong cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), on the previous day, according to the HKMWO-HKMAO website.
The visit focused on supporting Hong Kong and Macau in aligning with the nation’s 15th Five-Year Plan, deepening their respective participation in the development of the GBA, and better integrating their respective development into the nation’s overall development.
The 11-member GBA consists of nine prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province and the nation’s two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
The province comprises a total of 21 prefecture-level cities.
Meanwhile, the executive committee of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin also convened a meeting yesterday on the spirit of last week’s special meeting, according to a statement by the committee last night.
MSAR Secretary for Economy and Finance Dora Ng Wai Han, who heads the zone’s executive committee, said that studying and putting into practice the spirit of last week’s special meeting is an important political task.
The in-depth cooperation zone’s governance consists of a management committee and an executive committee.
The management committee is the zone’s top decision-making body run under a dual-director system, jointly led by the governor of Guangdong Province and the chief executive of the MSAR. The zone’s executive committee is the body tasked with the zone’s daily functioning and execution of tasks.
There are nine bureaus administered under the zone’s executive committee, which comprises officials from Guangdong and Macau.
Currently, the zone’s management committee is jointly headed by Guangdong Governor Meng Fanli and MSAR Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai.
Ng said during yesterday’s meeting, held in Hengqin, that all staff of the executive committee must fully align their thoughts and actions with the central authorities’ decision-making and deployments and make full use of the major opportunities presented by last week’s special meeting.
Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai addresses yesterday’s meeting of the Leadership Group for Promoting the Development of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin at Government Headquarters in Nam Van district. – Photo: GCS
Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai (centre), his chief-of-cabinet Chan Kak (right), and his five policy secretaries pose for a photo at the start of yesterday’s meeting at Government Headquarters on Avenida da Praia Grande. – Photo: GCS
