Legislative Assembly | Plenary AL return dominated by Li’s visit, training of bilingual staff

Mak Soi Kun talked about the ‘gifts’ brought by Li Keqiang’s visit

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit last week to the region and the measures announced by him during the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum Macau dominated the discussions held during yesterday’s inaugural session of the Legislative Assembly’s (AL) legislative year.
The first topic raised during the return of the lawmakers to the assembly regarded the promotion of Macau as a tourism and business platform between China and the Portuguese-speaking countries. A primary concern relating to this issue is the limited “number of bilingual (Chinese–Portuguese) talents” available to carry out the much needed new functions.
The topic was launched right at the start of the session by lawmaker Zheng Anting, who asked the government to review the legal framework related with the finance industry, relating that factor with the need to strengthen relations with Portuguese speaking countries.
“In order to achieve this goal of securing the stability and safety of the finance system and to provide support to both Portuguese and Chinese companies, I urge the government to improve, as soon as possible, the regulations and laws related with the finance industry and to go ahead with the studies and plans about complementary measures to be adopted,” said Zheng in his spoken enquiry.
Zheng’s words are reminiscent of those expressed by Secretary Lionel Leong on a previous occasion. The latter had mentioned that the development of a finance industry should be evaluated by a good law framework.
In order to create such a platform, Zheng suggested reinforcing the education and training of “bilingual talents” in the field of finance so that they would be able to provide services to both individual clients and companies, adding that only such an initiative could “promote the use of the Chinese Yuan (RMB) in Portuguese-speaking countries and develop the role of Macau as platform.”
Mak Soi Kun inquired if Macau is ready “to receive the gifts that Premier Li offered the region.” In the lawmaker’s opinion the local government should “valorize these generous gifts offered by the country and take advantage of the opportunities of the development of China.”
Mak cited figures of a study conducted by a local association about the development and competitiveness of Macau youngsters, which revealed that less than 10 percent possess some Portuguese language skills. “This can be a serious problem!” said Mak. “If we can’t respond positively to these ‘gifts’ we might lose them.”
On the topic, Chan Hong, who is also vice principal of Hou Kong Middle School, mentioned that “for historical reasons the teaching of the Portuguese language in Macau was never generalized and after the handover the language has been decreasingly used by the population.” Hong drew a dark panorama for the use of Portuguese in the territory, citing results of a study from 2014 which mentioned “that the use rate of the Portuguese language ranges between 0.4 and 0.9 percent.”

On the lawmakers’ agenda

Political reform Ng Kuok Cheong once more placed political reform and the path to the election of the Chief Executive (CE) by universal suffrage on the agenda. The lawmaker urged the government to present a concrete time frame for the development of the territory’s political system towards democratization. Ng called for the fulfillment of the promise of the CE to develop the political system by starting to change the number of seats at the AL occupied by directly elected legislators. Ng reminded the government “a political system needs to respect public opinion and fulfill the residents’ wishes in this area,” calling for universal suffrage in Macau or as he mentioned – a 1 person 1 vote system.

68 days off Kwan Tsui Hang called on the government to establish an effective system in which all workers in both the public and private sectors are guaranteed access to the 68 days of annual rest (including weekly days off, annual leave and mandatory holidays). According to the lawmaker, the private sector does not follow the government’s way of compensation of the mandatory holidays that fall on the workers’ rest days, which strips them of the right enshrined in the labor law. Kwan urges the government to review the law to add specifically this aspect in order to grant fairness of treatment to all workers in Macau.

Human resources Ella Lei highlighted the topic regarding the number of non-resident workers (TNR) once more. The legislator stated: “In a moment in which the economy is retracting and there are less work positions, reducing the number of TNR to safeguard the priority of employment of the local workers is the legal principle as well as the most direct way to grant their livelihood.” Lei expects the government to deal with the issue in a positive way and to present measures to reduce the number of TNR in the policy address for the coming year.