Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, more local youths have decided to go to the mainland for internships, especially in the medical and technology industry, Chinese Youth Advancement Association Secretary-General Marty Si Iat told reporters yesterday.
Si made the remarks on the sidelines of yesterday’s Nansha one-stop service platform for young entrepreneurs launch ceremony at the Macau Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre in Nape.
Si said that in recent years more local youths have been keen to find internships in the mainland, but the number spiked this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that there are youths who have also stayed in the mainland in full-time positions after their internships.
When asked whether this would cause Macau a “brain drain” if local youths move to the mainland, Si said that he would urge the government to come up with policies that would attract local talents to return to Macau after their internships in the mainland.
Moreover, the Guangzhou Nansha Youth Association has been working with the Hong Kong and Macau authorities and yesterday launched a “one-stop service platform” for local youths to start their own businesses, according to a statement by the organiser.
The statement said that Nansha, Hong Kong and Macau cooperation had huge potential, adding that the organisers hoped to have more business cooperation with youths from the three regions.
The statement also noted that since late October last year, 43 youths from Hong Kong and Macau have applied to move to Nansha to start their own businesses there, two of whom received a business licence and each of them received a one million yuan subsidy from the Nansha government.
Nansha District and Nansha New Area is one of 11 urban districts and a state-level New Area of Guangzhou. Covering an area of 544 square kilometres (about half of the size of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region), Nansha has a population of 260,000. Nansha lies some 67 kilometres north of Macau.
Chinese Youth Advancement Association Secretary-General Marty Si Iat talks to the media on the sidelines of yesterday’s Nansha one-stop service for young entrepreneurs platform launch ceremony at the Macau Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre in Nape.
Photo: Prisca Tang
