The Sino-Portuguese Land Group held its last meeting in Beijing on December 9 and both sides reviewed their work over the past 11 years. In accordance with the regulations of the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration, the land group was established in January of 1988 to take charge of land-related contracts in Macao on behalf of their respective government. The group is scheduled to end its work on December 19, one day before the founding of the Macao Special Administrative Region ( SAR). Chief representatives of the two sides and other members of the land group held more than 100 formal and informal meetings since the group was established. And the two sides reached consensus on leasing 211 hectares of land. The Chinese side of the group is entrusted to manage the part of fund belonging to the Macao SAR government. By the end of October, the land fund of the Macao SAR grew to 9.8 billion patacas (1.225 billion US dollars), said Yang Runzhen, Chinese chief representative of the group. |