Ip Weng Fat, chairman of the festival’s organizing committee
The 11th edition of the International Culture and Food Festival will be held from September 25 to October 4 at the Macau Fisherman’s Wharf, featuring a total of 100 booths. The booths are now open for registration.
The event is themed “Celebrating the Festival and Relaunching the Economy” as it coincides with China’s National Day on October 1.
Hoping to provide a platform for SMEs to showcase their products, the festival will include booths presenting catering, retail and tourism products among others.
This year the festival has cooperated with banks and multiple payment platforms including Macau Pay, Mpay, Alipay, WeChat and others to provide discounts for participants’ transactions.
Ip Weng Fat, chairman of the organizing committee and the director general of Macau Association of Retailers & Tourism Services, believes that by the time the festival is held, there will be more visitors coming in, which could lead to more attendance at the festival.
“There are still few months to go so I believe that there will be more visitors from different places that can enter Macau by that time. I think the travel restrictions will be gradually released,” Ip told the press on the sidelines of the event.
Until August 14, the festival is calling on local SMEs to register for the event.
Last year, the event attracted 115 exhibitors, however, it has slightly lowered its expectations this time.
Ip said the committee expects that there will be around 100 exhibitors this edition, as it is more difficult to find exhibitors since they need to manage both the store and booth, and many SMEs are operating on reduced manpower.
He added that some migrant workers from SMEs are already not working for these companies, making it a challenge for local firms to operate with adequate resources.
Meanwhile, asked about his expectations after the relaxation of the 14-day quarantine required for those entering Guangdong province via Zhuhai, Ip said that the measure would not yet have a significant effect on Macau.
“The Macau government has been doing a lot to coordinate with Guangdong Province but I believe the lifting of the quarantine measure won’t have a great effect in Macau in the short term, since tourists will also need Individual Visit Scheme [visas] in order to visit Macau,” Ip explained.
Ip also reiterated that the volume of business in the upcoming months would not be as good as last year.
“We consider that the situation won’t be the same as the past. [Guangdong borders] have reopened and we hope that the industries will not continually lose too much money,” said Ip.
Ip further explained that the economic situation of the city also depends on the situation in mainland China. Both regions are holding out for economic recovery, especially now that the pandemic has stabilized in the two regions.
With the easing of the entry restrictions, Ip believes that SMEs will no longer need the government to support them, referencing the financial measures that the government rolled out during the peak of the pandemic to assist local firms, including the distribution of a total of 8,000 patacas in e-vouchers to each resident.
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