Balancing ‘visible and invisible’ hands in diversification: Lei

Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong said economic diversification will be orchestrated under “the leadership of the market and the guidance of the government.”

The official invoked an economic concept to elaborate during a press conference yesterday.

He said that the government will act as a visible hand and the market will act as an invisible one. While the latter should strive to optimize its use of available resources, the former should formulate the appropriate planning and supportive policies, improve and invigorate the market environment, and supervise market practices as well as preventing and controlling any potential imbalances.

While the optimization of resource use is “a market order,” the senior official highlighted that the market should make use of guiding policies and resources from the government and create products that are appealing to the market.

He was also asked how MICE – being a core industry – could be developed to achieve diversification. Underlining that the past 20 years or so have cultivated a high quality workforce and facilities for MICE in Macau, Lei said that the city should now strive to host events, noting that the local industry had historically merely organized events in the past decades without hosting them.

The government aims to achieve over 2,000 MICE sessions per year in Macau as part of the diversification plan. In the plan, there are 81 focused projects, which will help the government achieve this aim while diversifying the economy.

On review of progress of the plan, director of Policy Research and Regional Development, Cheong Chok Man, assured that progress will be reviewed annually. Challenges on the implementation of certain projects will be raised and discussed. If benchmarks are missed, additional resources will be invested to achieve the desired results.

Some benchmarks come with quantified determinants while others do not. Cheong said that this is because the plan is a collection of forecast and estimations. Consequently, it can be difficult to pinpoint the determinants of certain benchmarks.

To support diversification policies, the government will provide protections in certain areas such as finance, business environment, land, workforce, interdepartmental coordination, and industrial synergies between Macau and Hengqin, as well as auxiliary regulations.

This economic diversification plan is mainly focused on the “1+4” development strategy, with World Tourism Leisure Center being the utmost core of the plan.

The full texts of the plan in the two official languages are available for download at https://www.dsepdr.gov.mo/zh-hant/event/plandiversification or can be obtained at government service centers or counters.