Integration

1. Let me remind that those who create diversification are not the government but the entrepreneurs.
For sure, the government can, and should, foster and facilitate the diversification of the economy by regulating and supporting sustainable initiatives.
But since the 1980s, the Macau Government has included industrial diversification in all LAGs (Governance Policies), and the result has been zero!
It was an attempt to persuade the industry to protect itself against a possible textile disaster if the quotas disappeared.
And it happened, soon after the MSAR handover.
Textiles were more than 80 percent of our exports at the time. Now they are practically worth zero!
Diversification of the economy is an option for those who really think it will generate business opportunities.
Macau invests, unfortunately, only in short term and safe businesses!
And who decides this is the businessman, not government officials!
2. Hong Kong joined the AIIB, an initiative of China that increasingly wants to take up more space in the globalized world of economy, now that the Americans have started shooting their own feet.
And Macau?
Please, it is time to allocate some of our reserves, which are likely smelling of mould, to increase our returns!
3-6. OBOR is still a long way away, like the beginning of the integration of Macau and Hong Kong into the Greater Bay Area.
If little things involving coordination with the first system do not work, who believes that the larger ones will run faster?
Like, for example, the full integration of Macau and Hong Kong into China’s first proposed system?
We must begin to work and think deeper about this, as it will take two decades at least! Morality will come again with the integration of Macau with China, I believe.
Do you want an example of lost morality in this second system?
Please see our rental market.
When the market was up, nothing was done.
When the market fell, it was no longer necessary.
But now that it has gone up again, nothing is going to happen as those who define policies are not the ones who live in rented apartments!
The Statistics Department does not even think it is necessary to have a quarterly publication of rental costs of housing and commercial spaces!
There are dozens of inquiries that are published, but regarding rents, zero!
As expected, Macau will be absorbed by mainland China.
For me, I would only hope that the colour of freedom in China could be similar to ours!