EU pushes enactment of business regulatory frameworks in Macau

Vincent Piket speaks yesterday in Macau

Apart from an increase in bilateral trade, the European Union (EU) is seeking to strengthen its relationship with Macau in the area of business regulatory frameworks.
The head of the EU Office in Hong Kong and Macau, Mr Vincent Piket, elaborated at a luncheon yesterday that the EU is keen to engage with Macau’s new government on several institutional aspects, including intellectual property, WTO government procurement, labor schemes, as well as “putting a competition act in place.”
“Our interest here is long-
lasting,” he told guests from the Macau European Chamber of Commerce. “With Macau we have a striking, healthy record. Last year we saw our trade with Macau go up by 28 percent, it’s even faster than the growth of its economy.”
From a booming trade relationship, the diplomat emphasized that the bilateral cooperation could go further in business and the economy, as “further works” had been discussed in the latest EU-Macau Joint Committee meeting held in July in Brussels.
“We are negotiating with Macau, trying to encourage it to adopt the government procurement agreement under the WTO [World Trade Organization]. Hong Kong’s got it, and we do hope that Macau can sign up to that too,” he said.
Another focus of the discussion was on the enactment of a Competition Act for Macau. “Macau is a small economy, and all the more reason to have a proper competition framework that is suited to the specific economy,” explained Mr Piket.
“We feel that we can share with Macau a lot of know-how on putting such an act in place and helping the implementation of it. We’ve done the job with HK where the act was adopted in 2012, and we are keen to dialogue with the government here as well for getting that law in place,” he added.
In order to deal with mutual problems and gain benefits for both sides, the EU is also seeking to strengthen the institutional relationship with Macau on business and economic cooperation. “For that we’ve made a specific proposal for setting up a sort of standing platform for good discussions,” said Mr Piket.
“We’ll definitely discuss the issue of labor, (…) to get professional staff that European firms need into the labor market here fast,” he said, explaining that in Macau it’s difficult to bring in engineers, lawyers, middle and high level managers.
Moreover, the diplomat stressed that the bilateral discussions need to go further on how European businesses can get better benefits from the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) signed between mainland China and the two SARs in 2003.
“This very interesting, dynamic arrangement is not yet sufficiently known among European companies,” he indicated, “the European companies in Europe often have no clue. As a result, good opportunities are being missed because of a lack of utilization of it.”
At the luncheon, guests also showed interest in the EUR315 billion Investment Plan that was recently announced by the European Commission. Mr Piket responded that the plan is to boost the economy and create jobs; it will help in itemizing a number of new projects, “particularly for long-term investments in infrastructure, ports and airports.”
“In this sense, it will definitely make the market a lot more transparent for foreign investors, including from Macau,” he said, “I have the sense that this is a very attractive sort of idea for Asian – including Chinese – investors.”
Besides “tremendous economic interests,” the diplomat acknowledged that, “security terms are also a huge interest for us to engage with Asia.” “Because with the economic point of gravity, the political center of gravity of the world is also moving,” he said.
“Even though one should say that we are not a military power like the United States is, we do take an interest in the stability and security of the South China Sea, the East China Sea and other parts of this region. And we are – indeed in some cases – an easier partner to work with, thanks to the fact that we have no direct military stake in this region,” he stated.