Senior central government and Communist Party of China (CPC) official Xia Baolong ended his seven-day visit to Macau and left the city via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) yesterday morning, and Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng said that Xia’s vivid metaphor of Macau as the nation’s “pearl in the palm” made the special administrative region’s importance self-evident.

Ho also said that the local government will strive to join hands with all sectors of society in order to make better use of Macau’s six praiseworthy advantages mentioned by Xia and make the city’s “golden business card” as an international metropolis shine even brighter. 

Ho quoted Xia, who heads both the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO), as identifying Macau’s six advantages as the “One Country, Two Systems” principle as its greatest institutional advantage; its sufficient development space; its highly internationalised business environment; its strong economic foundation; its unique blend of Chinese and Western cultural characteristics; and its traditionalist passion of patriotism and loyalty. 

Ho made the remarks during yesterday morning’s press conference about Xia’s seven-day visit to Macau, at Government Headquarters in Nam Van: “We sincerely thanked Xia for fully affirming the work of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) government and for the consistent interest in, and support for the development of Macau in all its aspects”. 

According to Ho, during Xia’s “investigation and research” tour of Macau and the Guangdong-Macau In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, he conducted a number of on-site and in-depth inspections, held discussions with representatives from various sectors and gained a “comprehensive” understanding of Macau’s overall situation at the grassroots level, including Macau’s medical and health care system, its “big health” industry and high-tech, as well as its education and youth institutions, affirming and encouraging Macau’s future development to promote economic growth, with the aim of improving people’s livelihoods, and to step up its efforts in opening up foreign tourist source markets, as well as to continue to improve the legal mechanism for implementing the principle of “patriots governing Macau”.

Ho wrapped up Xia’s fact-finding tour: “The visit came a year after Xia’s previous one [carried out from May 23-26 last year]. This time, Xia conveyed President Xi Jinping’s cordial message of caring for all Macau residents, and he did so through a schedule that was even more intensive and wider in scope than the previous one, with nearly 40 inspections across Macau and the cooperation zone,” adding that in addition to on-site inspection visit to the cooperation zone to learn more about the work achieved under its first-stage development goals, including a fact-finding tour of the Hengqin checkpoint, the cooperation zone’s public services centre, innovative scientific and technological enterprises, the “Macao New Neighbourhood” project and “big health” industry projects, Xia also exchanged views with representatives from various sectors, including principal officials and heads of the legislative and judicial branches; as well as National People’s Congress (NPC) deputies and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) members; and representatives of community and others associations. 

“Xia fully affirmed the progress made by Macau in all aspects of work,” Ho said, underlining that based on Xia’s praise for Macau’s six advantages, the local government will ensure that Macau’s golden business card as an international metropolis will shine even brighter, making good use of the six advantages that drive Macau’s continuous development, go all out to join hands with all walks of life in Macau and local residents to comprehensively promote the city’s various undertakings to achieve new progress, as well as to actively make use of the opportunity of organising this year’s double celebrations of the 75^th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the 25^th anniversary of Macau’s return to the motherland.

While the PRC was founded on October 1, 1949, the MSAR was established on December 20, 1999, which ended the city’s temporary administration by Portugal. 

Xia visits Cotai sports facilities 

Meanwhile, accompanied by Zheng Xincong, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Macau, Ho and Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U, Xia visited the Macau East Asian Games Dome and the nearby Athletes Training and Development Centre in Cotai to learn more about Macau’s large-scale sports facilities, while having exchanges with local athletes, according to a statement by the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS).

The statement noted that the East Asian Games Dome will be used as one of the venues for the 15^th National Games in Macau. The upcoming National Games is slated for December 8-15, 2025, and Macau has been tasked with hosting competitive sporting events comprising table tennis, women‘s volleyball, 3x3 basketball and under-18 men’s basketball, as well as karate, as part of the multi-sports event. 

HKMAO Director Xia Baolong (second from right, front) attends a briefing by Sports Bureau (ID) President Pun Weng Kun on Macau East Asian Games Dome’s functions yesterday, accompanied by Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng (third from right) and Liaison Office Director Zheng Xincong (fourth from right), among other officials. – Photo: GCS