Chinese President Jiang Zemin, heading a Chinese government delegation, arrived Macao at 12:05 hours today to attend the Macao handover ceremony which is to be held at midnight today by the Chinese and Portuguese governments.

This is the first time that a head of state of the People's Republic of China has ever set foot on the soil of this piece of Chinese territory, which has been under Portugal's occupation over the past one and a half centuries.

At around 12 o'clock this noon, two special planes carrying the Chinese government delegation landed at the Macao International Airport.

President Jiang Zemin and then Premier Zhu Rongji waved to the cheering crowd of welcomers at the gates of the plane cabins.

Jiang and Zhu were presented bouquets of flowers by two girls.

Hundreds of people from various sectors in Macao waved miniature Chinese national flags and flowers to greet the Chinese leaders and other delegation members.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, outgoing Portuguese Macao Governor Vasco Rocha Vieira, Portuguese State Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Luis Amado, and the Portuguese Ambassador to China Pedro Catarino were at the airport to greet the Chinese government delegation.

Jiang and Zhu were also greeted at the ramp side by Vice-Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Ma Man Kei, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, a member of the delegation who arrived earlier, first Chief Executive-designate of the Macao SAR Edmund Ho Hau Wah, director of the Xinhua News Agency Macao

Branch Wang Qiren, and other senior Chinese officials and principal officials of the future Macao SAR government. Jiang and Zhu shook hands and exchanged greetings with them one by one.

Other members of the Chinese government delegation include Qian Qichen, vice-premier, and Zhuo Lin, widow of the late senior Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.

Jiang and Zhu then drove to the hotels where they stay in Macao.

Apart from the handover ceremony, the central delegation, led by Jiang, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and chairman of the Central Military

Commission, will attend a ceremony marking the establishment of the Macao SAR and the swearing-in of the Macao SAR government as well as a celebration gathering for the establishment of the Macao

SAR on Dec. 20. (Xinhua)