The Chief Executive, Mr Sam Hou Fai, attends a reception in Macao to celebrate the Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities.
The Chief Executive, Mr Sam Hou Fai, today stated the Portuguese community has consistently made significant contributions to the healthy development of various undertakings in the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR). The MSAR Government will continue to safeguard the multicultural characteristics of Macao society, promote various development initiatives, and strive to enhance the well-being of all Macao residents, including the Portuguese community in Macao.
Mr Sam delivered a speech at a reception, held in the evening at the Residence of the Consul-General of Portugal in Macao, in celebration of the Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities.
Mr Sam extended to the Portuguese people, Portuguese living in Macao, and the Macanese community, festive greetings and sincere good wishes on behalf of the MSAR Government. He expressed gratitude for the Portuguese community’s unwavering support for, and cooperation with, the MSAR Government's work, as well as their contributions to Macao’s socioeconomic development.
The profound historical ties between Portugal and Macao remain visibly significant to this day, said Mr Sam. Today also marks the commemoration of Portugal’s great poet Luís de Camões, who resided in Macao for several years - an important figure in the early cultural exchanges between the two peoples.
Mr Sam said that the Chinese and Portuguese cultures have coexisted harmoniously in Macao – one of China’s gateways to the outside world – for centuries. This unique status, as emphasised by President Xi Jinping, has made Macao “the only region in the world with Chinese and Portuguese as official languages”.
China and Portugal have maintained sound cooperation and friendly ties, characterised by mutual respect and appreciation for each other’s sociocultural differences, setting a model for bilateral exchanges, noted Mr Sam. Cooperation between the MSAR and Portugal continues to deepen across economic, trade, technological and scientific innovation, human resources, healthcare, education, and cultural sectors, fully leveraging Macao’s distinctive advantages.
Mr Sam quoted President Xi’s remarks that “as a place where Chinese and Western cultures merge, Macao should promote international people-to-people exchanges, better present Macao and China to the world, and turn the city into an important window of exchanges between Chinese and Western civilisations”.
The MSAR Government remains committed to building a higher-level platform for opening-up, enhancing two-way openness with Portuguese-speaking countries, as well as fostering comprehensive, mutually-beneficial cooperation, and further enriching Macao's role as a China-Portuguese-speaking countries platform, said the Chief Executive.
Mr Sam stressed that, with strong support from the Central Government, the MSAR Government is firmly committed to: implementing fully and accurately the principle of “One country, two systems”; upholding the Basic Law; maintaining the long-term continuity of the capitalist system and lifestyle; preserving Macao’s status as an international free port and separate customs territory; and sustaining the European continental-law format of its legal system.
The Chief Executive expressed hope that the peoples of China and Portugal will continue to strengthen friendship and cooperation, jointly seize new opportunities through emerging platforms, enhance collaboration between Portuguese-speaking countries, China, and the MSAR, and showcase new prospects in economic-cultural development through “wit and art”, as goes the saying by Camões. This will further amplify the MSAR’s unique advantages as “a pearl on the palm” of the motherland.
