NPC and CPPCC meetings | ‘Tourism capacity of HK and Macau has reached saturation,’ says Zhou Bo

The second plenary meeting of the third session of China’s 12th NPC is being held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing

The deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Zhou Bo, has claimed that “the tourism capacity of Hong Kong and Macau has by and large reached saturation, as shown in the studies conducted by the two SAR governments,” according to a report by mainland newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily.
The report, quoted by South China Morning Post, added that the individual visit scheme will be altered to better suit Hong Kong’s situation. The scheme allows residents of 49 mainland cities to travel on their own to Macau and Hong Kong.
Zhou said that adjustments to this scheme would be in response to the concerns raised by Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying regarding the tourism scheme.  With tourism capacity reaching its limit, Zhou added, “It does not come as a surprise if certain problems occur.”
In Hong Kong, skirmishes between residents and mainland tourists have recently emerged, and calls to cut down the scale of the individual visit scheme have also arisen. Four protests against parallel traders from the mainland have taken place in the neighboring SAR in the past two months, South China Morning Post reported.
Meanwhile in Macau, the government has been discussing the city’s tourism capacity as well. Chief Executive Chui Sai On recently asked the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam, to prepare a report on Macau’s tourism capacity, which is due to be submitted to the central government by May.
As the National Committee of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) are taking place in Beijing, NPC delegates Leong Iok Wa and Ho Sut Heng have seen fit to respond to the issue of rampant phone scams in Macau. They have jointly suggested at the consultative conference the establishment of a mechanism for criminal and judicial assistance for Macau and mainland China, and hope to sign it into law soon. They believe the agreement would better prevent and combat cross-border crimes. CP

Local delegates vow to strengthen national education

Seven Macau delegates to the nation’s top advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), jointly put forward a proposal to strengthen national education for local youngsters.
They hope that the Ministry of National Education will be able to collaborate with the city’s Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) to compose the teaching materials for national education.
The seven Macau CPPCC representatives said that the current education materials needed to be reviewed to foster “moral quality, legal concepts and patriotism” among the younger generation, drawing on Hong Kong’s experience of the Umbrella Movement.
According to TDM radio news, one of the Macau CPPCC delegates, Wong Pan Seng, advised that “negotiated democracy” should be introduced into the education materials, which he thought could “consolidate the national consciousness” by infusing it among the youth over a number of years.