Mr. Start-ups to return to Macau

Less than one year since his last visit, the Portuguese Secretary for Industry João Vasconcelos is to return to Macau for the third time.
Business Daily understands that while in Lisbon last December, the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong Vai Tac invited Mr. Vasconcelos to meet him in the Special Administrative Region in the coming weeks and the invitation was accepted.
A specific date for the trip has yet to be decided, but the MSAR’s secretary has indicated that the trip will happen soon.
Mr. Leong visited Portugal in December last year and met again with the Portuguese Secretary for Industry, among other Portuguese government officials.
As reported by Business Daily previously, topics related to start-ups dominated Leong’s visit to Lisbon.
In fact, João Vasconcelos seems to be the right person to help Macau to boost the development of start-ups. He was the Executive Director of Startup Lisboa and the Lisbon Innovation and Entrepreneurship Association between 2011 and 2015, and was responsible for LIDE Empreendedorismo, an association focused on promoting sustainability and social responsibility in business and companies.

Third time
In addition, Vasconcelos was the first Portuguese government official to visit Macau, since Prime Minister Antonio Costa took office. In March last year, three months after taking office, the Portuguese Secretary for Industry met several members of the MSAR Government in Macau and visited Portuguese investments in the territory.
During his visit, he promised that Portugal and Macau “will soon strengthen co-operation in the fields of science and technology” and will show Macau “a new Portugal” with “a new economy” and “new entrepreneurs”.
Mr. Vasconcelos also indicated at that time that further “concrete steps” toward those ends would be taken in “the next months”.
Hence, when Vasconcelos returned in October with the Prime Minister, he signed an agreement with Secretary Leong to establish a Start-up and Innovation Center in Macau in 2017.
During the visit, he also co-chaired the two-day StartUP Macau Forum, which was organized by the Macau China Think-tank for Fintech Industries, with the support of the Portuguese government and conceptualization by CESL Asia.
Two months later, Lionel Leong travelled to Portugal to meet the Portuguese official.
Once again, the goal was to learn about new policies to support start-ups, helping young entrepreneurs to launch their own projects. That’s why the Macau delegation – always accompanied by Mr. Vasconcelos – visited several government-backed venture capital firms that invest in start-ups.
They also visited a business center for start-ups in Lisbon that provides one-stop support services for markets such as China, Brazil, Angola and Europe. These are all examples that Lionel Leong wants to replicate in Macau.