Macao SAR Shows Signs of Thriving

The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China has shown thriving scenes since the establishment of the SAR government and will have a promising future, a senior legislator in Macao said.

The fine scenes can be seen in the aspects of improved public security, economic resurgence and booming tourism, according to Tong Chi Kin, a senior member of the Macao Legislative Council and spokesman for the Executive Council of the Macao SAR government. Tong made the remarks in a recent meeting with a group of people from the Hong Kong SAR of China. He said that after the establishment of the Macao SAR government, the situation of public security has been greatly improved and the number of criminal cases has dropped obviously. Over the past three months, local residents can feel that public security has turned for the better.

On the other hand, the morale of the police is raised under the SAR government rather than the Portuguese rule. They have become more efficient in cracking criminal cases.As long as the police make more efforts, they will surely be able to live up to the expectations of local residents and tourists, Tong Chi Kin said.

The economy has also shown signs of recovering. More business opportunities have come, internal consumption market tends to be booming, export maintains steady growth and unemployment rate begins to go down.

The legislator noted that recently two companies from Hong Kong have removed their headquarters to Macao, one pharmaceutical factory will be put into production soon, and a foreign bank is going to open a branch in the Macao SAR.

In the meantime, the SAR government is improving its administrative efficiency to offer investors better services, Tong Chi Kin said.

With regard to tourism, the number of tourists in the first month of the year increased about 20 percent over that in the same month of last year.

What's more important, Tong said, Macao's unique cultural features are attracting more tourists in addition to the traditional gambling business.

As the income from tourism is an important part of government revenue in Macao, the SAR government will try to make more people around the world acquire more favorable knowledge about Macao. Now the government has set up tourism offices in 14 big cities all over the world, and more shall be set up to better promote Macao's tourism, Tong Chi Kin said.

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