CE hopeful Forum Macao ministerial conference will finally be held in 2023

Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng announced today (Friday) that he hopes that the sixth ministerial conference of Forum Macau, postponed since 2019, will take place this year.

According to TDM Radio, the CE underlined that preparations are underway for the next ministerial conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Forum Macao).

Initially scheduled for 2019, the sixth ministerial conference of Forum Macao was postponed to June 2020, due to the elections for the Macau parliament, but did not take place due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The secretary general of Forum Macao, Ji Xianzheng, also said on Monday that the permanent secretariat would focus this year on preparing the next ministerial conference and celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Forum.

According to a press release released on Thursday, Ji was speaking during a visit by the Forum’s permanent secretariat to the Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau Affairs Department of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

On the sidelines of a press conference in the neighboring area of Hengqin (Mountain Island), Ho Iat Seng recalled that the territory has played the role of a platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, through Forum Macau.

On Thursday, the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, João Gomes Cravinho, appointed Márcia Cordeiro Guerreiro as the new Portuguese delegate to Forum Macau.

The current person in charge, Maria João Bonifácio, ceases her duties on February 28th and Márcia Cordeiro Guerreiro will have a three-year term, starting on March 15th.

The executive is currently the coordinator of the international area at Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU), headquartered in Macau and which belongs to the Portuguese state-owned bank, Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD).

In the dispatch, Minister João Gomes Cravinho defended that “it is necessary to guarantee the continuity of the follow-up of the work” of Forum Macau.

The document also underlined “the economic and political importance for Portugal” of Forum Macau, “as a complementary instrument of cooperation, namely bilateral cooperation with the People’s Republic of China, the connection to the Special Administrative Region of Macau and the promotion of the Portuguese language and relations with the Portuguese-speaking world”.

Tutored by the Ministry of Commerce of China, the Forum assumes itself as “a multilateral mechanism of intergovernmental cooperation focused on economic and commercial development, with the objectives of consolidating economic and commercial exchange” Sino-Lusophone.

The permanent secretariat of Forum Macao includes, in addition to a general secretary and three assistant general secretaries, the nine delegates from the Portuguese-speaking countries: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor.