The Portuguese ambassador in Beijing considers that the review of the rules for the allocation of the China-Portuguese-Speaking Countries Co-operation and Development Fund is an “important measure” and will mark the extraordinary ministerial meeting of the Forum Macau, being held on Sunday (April 10) in the Macau SAR.

The meeting “is of great scope as the participating member states in the Forum agreed to review the rules of operation of the support fund, adapting them more to the realities of Portuguese-speaking countries”, José Augusto Duarte told Lusa.

The diplomat noted that the way in which the fund is now allocated has, “in practice, conditioned its use”.

“With this revision of the rules, we hope that the scenario will change, allowing Forum Macau and the Fund to contribute with tangible results for the benefit of citizens”, he added.

According to publicly available data, the US$1 billion fund, created in 2013 by the China Development Bank and the Macau Industrial and Commercial Development Fund, has so far approved three projects in Mozambique, Angola and Brazil, granting around 35 million dollars.

For the president of the Macau-based International Lusopphone Markets Business Association, Eduardo Ambrósio,  the mechanism has been “very little used”.

“The minimum loan amount is five million dollars and that only represents 20 per cent of the total investment value of a project”,  Mr Ambrósio said.

This is a “very high amount for small and medium-sized companies in Macau”, he explained.

Six years after the previous ministerial conference of the Forum Macau, the member countries of the body are meeting again, in an online meeting, under the theme “A world without a pandemic, a common development”.

“The ministers responsible for matters” of the Forum will intervene on “the strengthening of exchanges in pandemic prevention” between China and the Portuguese-speaking bloc and “the joint promotion of economic recovery in the post-pandemic period”, the organization said in a statement.

The meeting will also formalize the entry of Equatorial Guinea as a member, joining Angola, Brazil, China, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste.

Rafael Custódio Marques, consul general of Mozambique in Macau, told Lusa that the ministerial meeting should serve as an “instrument for reprogramming the Forum’s activities”.

“The pandemic, naturally, created a series of barriers from the movement of people, from trade, and broke the rhythm of the Forum’s activities”, he pointed out.

Regarding the work of the organisation, the envoy from Maputo said that “there is always room for improvement”, requiring “greater intervention” by the chambers of commerce and trade associations of the intervening countries.

In 2003, China established the Macau Special Administrative Region as a platform for economic and trade cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries and created the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooepration between China and the Portuguese Speaking Countries (Macau)

Five ministerial conferences were held in the territory in 2003, 2006, 2010, 2013 and 2016, during which Action Plans for Economic and Trade Cooperation were approved.

Initially scheduled for 2019, the sixth ministerial conference was postponed to June 2020, but did not take place due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Source: Macau Business