Lai Chi Vun | Advocacy group wants shipyards to be included on cultural heritage list

A group of concerned citizens calling themselves the “Lai Chi Vun Shipyard Concern Group” handed a petition to the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) yesterday morning.

The petition, which comprises 670 signatures from Macau residents, is part of the group’s efforts to include the shipyards on the IC’s list of sites of cultural heritage in Macau.

The group is calling for the IC to suspend the demolition immediately and conduct a cultural heritage assessment of the shipyards.

The group also asked the government to clarify its intentions for the area’s development, said the group’s spokesperson Tam Chon Ip.

Tam, whose father and grandfather were both ship
builders at the Lai Chi Vun shipyards, was involved in a 2015 IC program offering tours of the sites for a short period of time (around two weeks).

The tours covered the history of shipbuilding in Macau and featured stories from Tam’s family about their work in the shipyards since the early 1950s.

In a statement, the IC acknowledged its receipt of the petition, which contains signatures collected by residents to “apply the classification procedures of immovable heritage to the Lai Chi Vun shipyards.”

The IC said in the same statement that it is reviewing and analyzing the information and will address it “in accordance with the Cultural Heritage Protection Law.”

The bureau added that it “will continue to carry out data collection and environmental mapping work in the Lai Chi Vun shipyards area.”