Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai met with Communist Party of China (CPC) Shanghai Municipal Committee Secretary Chen Jining yesterday during his ongoing working visit there, where both sides exchanged views on deepening practical cooperation in key areas and on promoting regional coordinated development, according to a statement by the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) last night.
During the meeting, the statement said, Sam also said he expects Shanghai to encourage its technology enterprises to expand business opportunities in Macau.
Sam is paying a five-day fact-finding visit to Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, Shanghai Municipality, and Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, which started on Saturday last week. Sam is scheduled to return to Macau tomorrow night. After his inspection visit in Hangzhou, Sam departed for Shanghai on Sunday afternoon.
CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee Deputy Secretary and Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng also attended yesterday’s meeting between Sam and Chen.
Yesterday’s statement said that Sam will depart for Nanjing today.
During yesterday’s meeting, according to the statement, Sam expressed his gratitude to Shanghai for its close attention to Shanghai-Macau cooperation and its long-standing support for Macau’s successful implementation of the “One Country, Two Systems” principle and continuous development.
Sam noted that Shanghai-Macau relations have always been close, with both sides expanding cooperation across various fields, adding that significant results have been achieved in mutual cooperation in various areas such as finance, technological innovation, cultural tourism, conventions and exhibitions, youth affairs, and education.
According to the statement, Sam said that the two sides can engage in joint research projects in science and technology, deepen cross-border financial cooperation, cultivate interdisciplinary talent through shared educational resources, promote multi-destination tourism packages for international markets, and strengthen synergy in the conventions and exhibitions industry.
In the future, Sam said, Shanghai and Macau can focus on the joint development of high-tech industries, with an emphasis on fostering deeper exchanges and collaboration between technology enterprises and academic institutions in the two places and on launching cooperation projects that involve industry-academia-research collaboration and the commercialisation of cutting-edge technologies, with the aim of helping technology enterprises in Macau achieve technological breakthroughs while creating new development opportunities for technology enterprises in Shanghai.
According to the statement, Sam noted that Shanghai, as a core city in the Yangtze River Delta, and Macau, as a core city of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA), are two places that possess distinct advantages within their respective locales, and are both committed to advancing technological innovation and its practical application.
Sam noted that in accordance with the important tasks assigned by the central authorities, Shanghai is accelerating its commitment to developing into a “five centres” international city, namely economic, financial, trade, shipping, and technology innovation, while Macau is committed to implementing the spirit of President Xi Jinping’s important speeches made during his inspection to Macau late last year, including advancing its appropriate economic diversification in line with the local government’s 1+4 plan and promoting the development of the Guangdong-Macau In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.
Sam said that both places are embracing greater development opportunities as they are integrating their respective development into the nation’s overall development.
Sam said that based on this foundation, Shanghai and Macau can jointly explore collaborative projects that link Shanghai’s “five centres” goals and Macau’s 1+4 strategy, complementing each other’s strengths and injecting greater impetus into collaborative development for enterprises from both sides.
According to the statement, Sam said he expects Shanghai to continue supporting Macau’s appropriate economic diversification campaign and to further leverage Macau’s role as a business service platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries so as to deepen its exchanges and cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries.
According to a separate GCS statement yesterday, Sam yesterday visited Zhangjiang Science City, a high-tech industrial park in Shanghai, and two technology enterprises in the city.
Sam also visited the “Mosu Space”, a large-scale model innovation-based ecological community in Shanghai, to gain a better understanding of its development as a specialised incubation and acceleration platform for artificial intelligence (AI) large models, and Shanghai’s strengths in the AI sector.
Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai (left) meets with Communist Party of China (CPC) Shanghai Municipal Committee Secretary Chen Jining at the Grand Halls in Shanghai yesterday.
Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai is briefed yesterday by a staff member about the functions of a robot while visiting a tech enterprise in Shanghai specialising in the development and production of general-purpose robots. – Photos: GCS
