Highlights of the plan

Development: The “Promotion of the Economic Diversification” and the establishment of a “Platform of Regional Cooperation” are the two main goals within this topic. The promotion and development of the “non-gaming” sector is one of the highlights, with the government stating that it wants to achieve a figure of 9 percent for non-gaming revenues in the gaming operators’ results, increasing that portion from the current figure of 6.6 percent. Some journalists questioned whether the forecast was too conservative. “In the process of defining these goals, we heard the opinions of the associations, the people in general and the professionals from the different sectors,” Lei Ngan Leng replied, justifying the figure with the fact that the 9-percent goal had gathered consensus across several sectors.
Another of the needs for the development is the “articulation [of this five-year plan] with the 13th five-year National plan [of People’s Republic of China],” that, as stated, aims to “reinforce regional cooperation.”

Good Governance: The final topic raised questions from the press as journalists indicated surprise at the fact that this topic does not include any mechanism or intention to reinforce government integrity, despite the fact that several reports from the Commission of Audit (CA) and the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) had recently pointed out several problems in this area.
As expected and already addressed by the CE when answering lawmakers’ questions at the Legislative Assembly (AL) last week, the creation of the non-political municipal bodies is included in the five-
year plan and they will be ready by 2018. This is accompanied by promises that the government will “study the mechanism for promotion and selection of public servants.”