CE calls on Singapore PM and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong
MACAU, August 31 - The Chief Executive, Mr Sam Hou Fai, today called on Singapore’s Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Mr Lawrence Wong. They exchanged views on a range of topics and agreed to strengthen high-level, practical cooperation between Macao and Singapore, leverage their respective strengths, and jointly create new opportunities for mutually-beneficial outcomes.
The Chief Executive arrived in Singapore on Saturday (29 August) for an eight-day official visit covering three Southeast Asian countries: Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
During today’s meeting, Mr Sam expressed gratitude to Mr Wong for his support for the visit by a delegation of Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) Government officials and business representatives. The Chief Executive noted that the friendship between China and Singapore has a long and solid foundation, and in recent years, under the strategic guidance of the leadership in both countries, the comprehensive, high-quality, and forward-looking partnership between the two nations has continued to deepen, yielding positive results.
As a special administrative region of China, Macao’s successful implementation of the “One country, two systems” principle is a significant example. It fully demonstrates the values of peace, inclusiveness, openness, and shared development embedded in the principle. Those values closely align with Singapore’s own highly-inclusive and internationally-connected society, said Mr Sam. The MSAR Government attaches great importance to fostering friendly relations with Singapore, and looks forward to deepening bilateral exchanges and cooperation.
Mr Sam added that in recent years, close interactions between the two sides in the fields of tourism, conventions and exhibitions, trade, education, and culture, have laid a solid foundation for deeper practical collaboration. Macao is currently focused on optimising its industrial structure, to enhance its economic resilience and overall competitiveness. As a globally-recognised success story in economic transformation and industrial upgrading, Singapore offered valuable lessons for Macao to study and draw upon.
The MSAR Government has recently-launched the Third Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the MSAR (2026-2030), with an emphasis of the city’s active alignment with China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, while advancing appropriate economic diversification through four key major projects, Mr Sam stated.
With the new development orientation of “Macao + Hengqin”, the MSAR Government is committed to deepening integrated development between Macao and Hengqin, opening up significant new opportunities for all stakeholders. Mr Sam expressed hope that the Singapore Government would continue to support and encourage local enterprises to make full use of the Macao-Hengqin platform, strengthen regional economic and trade cooperation, and jointly connect the vast markets of the Chinese mainland and Southeast Asia, sharing in the benefits of regional collaboration and sustainable growth.
Mr Wong thanked the Chief Executive for making Singapore the first stop of the second overseas mission by representatives of the current-term MSAR Government. He noted that both Singapore and Macao are open economies with highly-similar population densities and development trajectories, and that bilateral exchanges have been growing increasingly close.
Macao, as a key part of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, is actively advancing the high-quality development of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, presenting abundant development opportunities, noted Mr Wong.
The visit by the MSAR delegation, accompanied by entrepreneurs from Macao, Hengqin, and the other places on the Chinese mainland, is conducive to enhancing connections and cooperation with Singaporean investors, said the Prime Minister. He added that while Singaporean investors are attentive to Macao’s market, they also seek to leverage the Macao platform to access the Cooperation Zone and the broader Greater Bay Area, seizing valuable investment opportunities.
Mr Wong said he looked forward to deepening coordination, achieving full alignment, and promoting synergistic development between Singapore and Macao, whether through official visits or business exchanges.
During the meeting, both sides acknowledged broad scope for cooperation between Macao and Singapore. Building on the existing strong foundation, they agreed to tap further into cooperation potential, actively explore new areas of collaboration, and in particular, strengthen industrial partnerships, promote exchanges between higher education institutions, and deepen joint development in the fields of tourism and conventions and exhibitions.
Also present at the meeting were: the Chinese Ambassador to Singapore, Mr Cao Zhongming; Macao’s Secretary for Economy and Finance, Ms Ng Wai Han; the Chief-of-Office of the Chief Executive’s Office, Ms Chan Kak; the Director of the Macao Government Tourism Office, Ms Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes; the Consul-General of Singapore in Hong Kong, Mr Eric Teo Boon Hee; and the Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lin Qinghui.
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
