Chief Executive, Edmund Ho left today (4 March) for Beijing to attend the opening session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC).
Upon his arrival in Beijing, Mr Ho paid a courtesy call to Huang Huahua, who replaced Lu Ruihua as the Governor of Guangdong Province in January. The two leaders had exchanged points of view on mutual concerned issues.
At a meet-the-media session after the meeting with Mr Huang, the Chief Executive said that the two sides had discussed and reached consensus on a number of issues, such as the Cross-border Industrial Zone, the joint-development of Hengqin Island, and using Macao as an economic development platform for the western part of Guangdong.
"Both sides agreed to work more closely to speed up cooperation projects", said Mr Ho, adding that he would head a delegation to visit western Guangdong within this month to discuss related projects with the counterparts.
Meanwhile, Mr Ho revealed that the Guangdong Provincial Government had submitted a proposal the the central government which would allow individual Gunagdong citizen to visit Hong Kong or Macao, without having to join any tour groups. He said the Macao SAR Government welcomed and supported the new arrangement.
When asked about the necessity of prolonging clearance hours at the Border Gate Checkpoint, Mr Ho replied that the Government did not explicitly consider the issue at this stage, stressing that the authority would study the feasibility of prolonging the clearance hours during holidays. He also said that related departments would continuously examine and review over the clearance process at the Checkpoint.
Regarding the cooperation between Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM) and MGM Mirage, Mr Ho stated that the Macao SAR Government encourages and allows the three gaming concessionaires to upgrade their competitiveness through cooperating with other companies, provided that the cooperation should be in line with gaming regulations and beneficial to the overall development of Macao.
In 2002, the Macao SAR Government liberalized the gaming industry by granting three casino concessions to investors from Macao, Hong Kong and the United States.
