One third of Hengqin population expected to come from Macau

The Hengqin new area plan display room

The director general of the Hengqin New Area Administrative Committee, Niu Jing, predicts that more than one-third of the population on the nearby island will be made up of Macau residents by 2020.
Mr Niu voiced this prediction yesterday during a speech he gave as part of a Zhuhai business environment promotion at the Macau International Trade and Investment Fair (MIF). The director general said that his administrative committee aims to continuously improve the development of Hengqin and provide investment opportunities to investors.
Niu Jing said that Hengqin is working on the construction of the temporary border checkpoint and hopes that it was be finished before the central government makes its decision regarding 24-hour border crossing. He believes that with round-the-clock crossings plus the policy that only permits vehicles with Macau license plates to run on Hengqin, more Macau residents will look to relocate to Hengqin, including living and working there.
Mr Niu later reiterated to the media that the number he mentioned in his speech was only a prediction. “According to the general planning of Hengqin, there will be approximately 200,000 people living in Hengqin in 2020. We hope that there will be a group of Macau residents working and living in Hengqin so that the living space of Macau can be expanded”, he said. JPL