Ten formal candidates running for deputies from the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) to the Ninth National People's Congress, China's highest legislature, was chosen by an electoral conference in Macao January 26 morning.

By means of secret ballot, members of the electoral conference chose the formal candidates from 24 candidates. In accordance with a detailed method for choosing the NPC deputies from the Macao SAR, a pre-election has to be held if there are too many candidates.

A bulletin issued by the presidium of the electoral conference said that the final election will be held on January 28 when seven NPC deputies from the Macao SAR will be chosen from the ten formal candidates.

Between January 8 and 22, a total of 31 Macao residents with Chinese citizenship got registered to run for the posts of NPC deputies, and 24 of them managed to collect enough numbers of nomination from members of the electoral conference.