Committee for World Centre of Tourism and Leisure holds First Plenary Meeting of Year

Chief Executive Chui Sai On chairs first plenary meeting of World Centre of Tourism and Leisure of this year (Photo courtesy of Office of Government Spokesperson)

The Committee for the World Centre of Tourism and Leisure held its first plenary meeting of the year on 28th July, chaired by Chief Executive of the Macao SAR and President of the Committee Chui Sai On. During the meeting, the Committee listened to an evaluation of the Five-Year Development Plan (2016-2020), while the newly established 'Macao Outreach Co-ordination Group' and the 'Smart City Development Group' presented their future work plan.

Over 90 pct of items executed meet expectations in Q1

During the meeting, the advisor of the Office of the Chief Executive, Lei Ngan Leng, presented the evaluation of the Five-Year Development Plan (2016-2020), with analysis framework including a self-assessment conducted by the government plus external and local society evaluation.

According to the report, the execution of the Five-Year Plan is proceeding to plan. Representatives of the government and independent institutions analyzed the situation of the Plan in 2016, reaching identical conclusions, in essence, judging that more than 80 per cent of the objectives had been achieved.

At the beginning of the year, the government evaluated 357 items executed during the first quarter of the year, of which 336 items fulfilled expectations, or 94.1 per cent in total. The 21 items trailing progress expectations thus accounted for 5.9 per cent of the total. Issues involved included the revision of laws, essential infrastructure construction, public administration, social services, environmental protection, and so forth.

In mid-July, the Office of Policy Studies organized three conferences on society's evaluation of the Five-Year Development Plan, addressing, in particular, the social security system, nurture of talent, and transportation. In the three conferences, over 172 suggestions were collected, 155 of which were positive, or about 90 per cent of the total.

The Chief Executive pointed that the Five-Year Development Plan is a massive construction, involving a number of aspects, while multiple issues are likely to arise in the process. Society has high expectations of the Plan, and a correspondingly high requirement of the MSAR Government Administration. The Chief Executive also said that each department had to brace for challenges in the implementation process, solving them in a down-to-earth way and learning from other's strong points to make up for deficiencies and carry forward in a stable way.

Five-Year Development Plan off to good start

The Committee also listened to the vision of both the 'Macao Outreach Co-ordination Group' and the 'Smart City Development Group'. The Director of the MSAR Government Information Bureau, Victor Chan, introduced the role of the 'Macao Outreach Co-ordination Group' as being to co-ordinate external promotional activities, integrate promotion resources of different departments, set up mid to long term planning, organize a promotion strategy based upon the characteristic of different areas, and enhance the image of Macao.

While introducing the work direction of the 'Smart City Development Group', the Head of the Office of the Chief Executive, O Lam, indicated that the construction of an intelligent city represents one of the development strategies stipulated in the MSAR Five-Year Development Plan. Macao can achieve faster results by creating a General Plan, including the follow-up of specific programmes and the adoption of appropriate measures via, for example, 'Conquering Markets Outside Macao' and 'Attracting Foreign Investors'.

The Group is made up of four standing members and 43 non-standing members, formed by representatives from different departments, with its main functions to co-ordinate projects for building a Smart City, provide related suggestions, and carry out assignments assigned by the Committee.

All members of the Committee agreed that since the implementation of the Five-Year Plan, the initial situation remains positive, while the results obtained are already evident. These results depend upon the strong support of the Central Government as well as the efforts of the MSAR Government and local community. Following the defined guidelines in a realistic and pragmatic way in order to achieve the objectives is considered the way forward.