Francis Tam: boost SME access to Hengqin

Any preferential policies to help local SME’s join the development of Hengqin will be defined by the Central Government, secretary for Economy and Finance, Francis Tam said yesterday

The Administration should announce measures to help Macau’s small and medium sized enterprises (SME) to join the development of Hengqin Island by the second half of this year, the secretary for Economy and Finance said yesterday.
However, Francis Tam Pak Yuen stressed at the end of a Committee for the Economic Development meeting, those “preferential policies” will depend on the Central Government.
Committee members are “very worried,” he acknowledged, about how to create business opportunities for local businessmen as part of the development of Hengqin Island.
The Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute will create a working group to study both “preferential policies” for local SME’s and the islands development, Tam said.
The creation of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Science and Technology Industrial Park and the new University of Macau campus in Hengqin is “an investment of great potential” to “boost the expansion of other industries as well,” he emphasised.
And it’s also “an opportunity for local companies to expand their businesses,” the secretary said. But, he added, “there is still a long road ahead and we need to know what the right path is for our businessmen”.
“We will analyse the ideas put forward by local businessmen and redirect them to mainland China authorities,” Tam said. Any preferential policies will always have to be defined by the Central Government, he stressed.
Both lawmakers and the chairman of the local Small and Medium Enterprises Association, Stanley Au Chong Kit, have called on the Administration to set up measures to ensure the future development of Hengqin Island will benefit local SME’s.
Last March the director of the Centre for Studies of Hong Kong, Macau and the Pearl River Delta of Sun Yat-Sen University, Chen Guanghan, said SME’s generally didn’t have the capacity to participate in the development of Hengqin.
Asked about the low execution rate of the public investment plan – 0.9 percent in the first four months of 2011 –, Francis Tam said there are “several factors” that explain this situation but did not give any further details.