The final document of the MSAR’s first Five-Year Development Plan presented yesterday, highlights the need to create land reserves and to improve urban planning. The Chief Executive (CE), Chui Sai On, who attended the presentation together with all of the government secretaries, stated that one of the government’s major priorities over the next five years is the construction of public housing.
Although any differences between this final document and the version presented last April are difficult to recognize, Chui remarked that this final version of the plan is more comprehensive, due to the collection of over 4,200 opinions during the public consultation period and in the 41 presentation sessions held with several sectors of society.
According to the CE, 85 percent of the opinion presented were in favor of the plan.
During the Q&A session that followed the presentation by the CE, Secretary for Transports and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário, guaranteed that the Master Plan would be ready in 2019.
Rosário also said, regarding the land reserves the priorities are very clear, “first [priority] will be public housing, second, some of the land can be allocated for government warehouses and in third priority will be the public services,” he said, reaffirming the prioritization of public housing, especially social housing.
On this issue, the CE further added that until the end of this year, 4,000 units will be available, and for zone A of the new landfill, another 28,000 are planned to be built. Chui affirmed that, “we are certain that [we] will satisfy the needs of the population.”
When questioned by the press regarding the lack of information of the MSAR’s expected economic growth for the period until 2020, the CE said that “the gaming industry, which is the main economic drive, suffered an adjustment over the past 12 months, but since last month restarted its grow. We hope it will continue to grow and we also hope to increase the non-gaming sector that has been growing in the last few years. We expect it to grow from 6.6 percent to 9 percent [until 2020],” he added optimistically.
Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong said, “Macau suffers from the influence and fluctuation of the world economy and it’s difficult to make predictions,” adding, “we must continue to diversify and bet on the non-gaming sectors as a way to benefit the SME’s and the emerging sectors,” Leong said.
The five-year development plan for the MSAR also states that the government expects local SME product and service sales to the gaming concessionaires to grow from 41 percent (2015) to 50 percent (2020); and the same applies to the proportion of local suppliers out of total suppliers for the gaming concessionaires, which is expected to grow by 7 percentage points (from 43 to 50 percent).
The Secretary for Economy and Finance defended the “health” of the region’s economy stating, “the best indicator is our very low unemployment rate. This shows that the population is in full employment and that’s very important for domestic consumption,” adding that the government will continue to regulate the employment area in order to promote career advancements for local residents.
Rosario appeals to population ‘not to waste food’
The Secretary for Transports and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosario, has appealed to the population and especially to hotels and resorts “not to waste food.” The unusual remark came about in response to a question regarding solid waste, which was put forward during the press conference that presented the final version of the government’s five-year plan. “The majority of the solid waste received is resulting from kitchen waste, which is causing us many problems in terms of the incineration process,” Rosario said, highlighting that although the origin of the food waste isn’t possible to attest, it “certainly will come mostly from the hotels and resorts.”
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