Gov’t pledges mainland social credit system not for Macau

The Policy Research and Regional Development Bureau (DSEPDR) issued a statement on Friday clarifying that Macau will not adopt the mainland’s social credit system.

On July 5, the Guangdong government issued a document on the direction of future Greater Bay Area development up to 2020.

Key points concerning the participation of Guangdong province in the development of the Greater Bay were proposed, with the document also including content regarding the quick construction of a social credit system and a market supervision system.

“The SAR government has received inquiries from various sources in recent days regarding [the specific content mentioned above],” the bureau said in its statement.

“First, the basic principle for the development […] is one country, two systems, which covers many aspects and multiple levels of content, including different social credit evaluation standards and methods. As a Special Administrative Region of China, Macau has its own governance system, including laws, rules and systems, and all of these are the guarantee and support of a social credit evaluation system and to a certain extent reflect the content of social credit evaluation,” the bureau statement reads.

“Hence, Macau will not implement the social credit system of mainland China,” the DSEPDR said.

“The main body of the abovementioned action plan is the Guangdong provincial people’s government. The policy should be implemented in the nine Greater Bay cities of Guangdong, but will not be implemented in the Macau SAR,” the statement reads.

“The development plan promulgated in February 2019 is a directional, principled and programmatic document, and its implementation requires the three governments to respond to their respective actual conditions,” the DSEPDR said.

“Matters involving cross- border cooperation requires consultations from Guangdong, Macau, and Hong Kong government and some matters may even require coordination by the central ministries.”