The secretary general of Forum Macau defended today that the organization will “take advantage of the Portuguese-speaking countries” to support the economic diversification of the territory.
Ji Xianzheng was referring, in addition to the tourism and leisure sector, to promoting the development of the four main industries of priority development, cutting-edge technology, ‘big health’, modern financial and convention and exhibition, cultural and sporty.
For the official, this support will enrich “the functions of the service platform for commercial cooperation between China” and Portuguese-speaking countries and support Macau in “integrating into the context of development” in China.
“The countries participating in the Macau Forum have followed their action plan and the joint declaration, defined at the ministerial conference, not giving rise to dissociation, nor isolationism prevailing, but rather adhering to the spirit of cooperation for common gains, reciprocal achievement and creation. together for a promising shared future”, he underlined.
Ji highlighted, at the lunch offered to the media, that this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macau) and the 15th edition of the Cultural Week of China and Portuguese-speaking nations.
In 2003, China established the Macao Special Administrative Region as a platform for economic and trade cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor -East, through Forum Macau.
Tutored by the Ministry of Commerce of China, the Forum assumes itself as “a multilateral mechanism of intergovernmental cooperation focused on economic and commercial development, with the objectives of consolidating economic and commercial exchange” Sino-Lusophone.
The permanent secretariat of the Forum includes, in addition to a general secretary and three assistant general secretaries, the nine delegates from the Portuguese-speaking countries: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor.
The secretary-general recalled that, last year, the Macau Forum held the extraordinary ministerial meeting, in ‘online’ and ‘offline’ format, under the motto “A World without Pandemic, A Common Development”, having the territory as the main location.
At the extraordinary ministerial meeting, the joint declaration and the official accession of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea as a participating country were approved.
Initially scheduled for 2019, the sixth ministerial conference was postponed to June 2020, due to the Macau parliamentary elections, but did not take place due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Throughout 2022, the permanent secretariat received more than twenty economic and trade delegations from China, participated in more than ten economic and trade promotion activities, organized three thematic ‘online’ colloquiums and held the 14th cultural week of the China and Portuguese-speaking countries.
