Studying abroad

The government of Macau seems to be betting on the development of new start-ups and entrepreneurship as a key to diversifying the local economy.
It is with this single purpose that Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong Vai Tac arrives in Portugal tomorrow to conduct at least two meetings with Portuguese administrators, Business Daily understands. The topic? Start-ups.
This is a new policy goal for the MSAR and is still very recent, with October seeing the first StartUP Macau Forum organised in the territory.
Since the beginning, Portugal was chosen as the main partner – and it was not a coincidence that the opening of the Forum was done by Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa. Macau is of the viewpoint that increased cooperation with experts from Portugal will help promote entrepreneurship in the territory.
Secretary Lionel Leong will be in Brussels today to attend the 21st meeting of the European Union-Macau Joint Committee, leaving the European Union’s capital at the end of the day.
Tomorrow in Lisbon he will separately meet with the Secretary of State of Commerce and the secretariat’s Assistant, as well as with the Secretary of State of Industry. After that, Secretary Leong will visit a business incubator that helps new and start-up companies to develop by providing services such as management training.
At the second meeting, a delegation from Portugal Ventures, a Venture Capital firm, “focusing its investments in innovative, scientific and technology-based companies as well as in companies from the more traditional Portuguese Tourism and Industrial sectors, with significant competitive advantages and export oriented to global markets,” will also be present. Portugal Ventures is the result of the merger of the three state-backed Venture Capital & Private Equity firms – AICEP Capital Global, InovCapital and Turismo Capital.

Seeking out change
As Business Daily understands, all of these meetings are at the Secretary’s request, envisioning this trip as a kind of study tour on the subject. The next day, the Secretary for Economy and Finance will return to Macau, but before that he will still have time to meet a representative of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (there is a vacant time slot on the agenda in the morning but there has been no confirmation of this meeting).
The Macau government seems to be in a hurry to get information about this little known reality in the region and thus be able to achieve the “Memorandum of Understanding for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship and Economic and Business Cooperation”, which was signed at the 5th Ministerial Conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese-speaking Countries.
Yet little or nothing is known about the plans of the Macau government for this area. It is to be expected, however, that Macau could help local and Chinese start-ups to move to Lusophone countries, connecting entrepreneurs from the Portuguese-speaking world and China.