Macau delegation visits city to strengthen cooperation

Ti Gong

The chief executive of China's Macau Special Administrative Region, Ho Iat Seng, is in Shanghai to take part in a meeting today to enhance cooperation between the two cities.

Before the official meeting, Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang and Mayor Gong Zheng had a brief meeting with Ho and the Macau delegation on Thursday afternoon to extend a welcome.

At the meeting, Li briefed them on Shanghai's key tasks and development plans. He said Shanghai is dedicated to building itself into a global center for economy, finance, trade, shipping and science and technology innovation, and is striving to strengthen its four functions of allocating global resources, leading scientific and technological innovation, directing the development of high-end industries and serving as a hub for opening-up. 

The city is also giving full play to the Pudong New Area's leading role in high-level reform and opening-up to promote the capacity and core competence of Shanghai, as well as exploring an approach for managing a megacity with Chinese and Shanghai characteristics.

He also pointed out that Shanghai and Macau have a long history of cooperation and trade exchanges. In the past few years, the two cities signed an agreement to establish a cooperation conference scheme to enchance collaboration.

"Looking to the future, Shanghai is willing to share experiences and continue expanding its cooperation with Macau," he said.

Ho thanked Shanghai for its long-term support for Macau. He said Shanghai is an international metropolis with many resources and talent as well as a solid industrial foundation.

"We hope to take the opportunity of this visit to learn about experiences and good practices in urban development from Shanghai, and deepen our cooperation in areas including industry, finance, talent and tourism to contribute to the development of the country and develop a Macau approach to implement the 'one country, two systems' policy," he said.

Ho kicked off the "Macau Week" in Shanghai on Thursday evening, featuring an introduction of tourism and cultural resources as well as specialties in Macau and releasing coupons to attract local tourists.

Ti Gong