A delegation of more than 50 local businessmen will accompany the Chief Executive on his first trip to Portugal since he took office. According to the document that PLATAFORMA had access to, the visits focus on the pharmaceutical and food industries.
The delegation travels with the Macau Institute for the Promotion of Trade and Investment, stopping in Lisbon and Porto, between 16 and 24 April. According to the provisional travel programme, the delegation will arrive on the 17th, with a visit scheduled that same afternoon to the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP). At dinner, he meets with Sino-Portuguese business associations, including the Luso-Chinese Merchants and Industrialists Association and the Portugal-China Chamber of Commerce Small and Medium Enterprises (CCPC-PME).
The next day (18th), visit Quinta da Marmeleira, in Alenquer, a winery owned and operated by Macau businessman Wu Zhiwei. In the afternoon, he travels to Luz Saúde, one of the largest health care groups in the Portuguese market, in which the Chinese group Fosun is the majority shareholder through the Fidelidade insurance company.
Even before dinner with the Luso-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Portugal-China Young Entrepreneurs Association, they will pass by the Sovena Group, an agro-industrial company focused on the production of olive oil and cooking oils.
The morning of the 19th is reserved for Delta Café, a Portuguese coffee roasting and packaging company owned by the Nabeiro Group and based in Campo Maior, Alentejo. In the afternoon, the delegation takes part in the opening ceremony of a tourism promotion event organized by the Macao Tourism Office (DST), at Praça do Comércio, in Lisbon.
This initiative includes a light and image show about Macau on the façades of Praça do Comércio, with four performances per night, between the 15th and the 22nd of April. DST will also organize a presentation session with Portuguese and Macau tour operators, together with the six gaming operators and the Cultural Institute.
After the opening ceremony, the economic delegation participates in the Macau-Portugal Seminar on Investment and Tourism Promotion, at the Hotel InterContinental Lisbon.
On April 20, the same delegation will visit two institutions linked to medicine: Champalimaud Foundation, a Portuguese non-profit foundation, with the aim of developing scientific research activities in the field of medicine; and Hovione, a pharmaceutical company with a laboratory in Macau.
On the same day, they travel to Nautical Portugal, a maritime economy project in Cascais.
On April 21, the group leaves for Porto, visiting only the pharmaceutical company BIAL. The following day, visit the Quinta da Boeira winery, in Vila Nova de Gaia, and Corticeira Amorim, the largest cork processing group in the world. On the 23rd they embark in Porto, arriving in Macau on the 24th.
Flexible schedule with “clear objectives”
The president of the International Commercial Association for Lusophone Markets tells PLATAFORMA that in addition to the stops provided for in the document, visits are planned to a shoe factory, a sector in which the country “is world-renowned”, and to the Navigator paper factory, “whose A4 paper products are the most imported from Portugal to Macau and Hong Kong”. On the other hand, Eduardo Ambrósio indicates that the delegation could be divided into two groups, for businessmen to choose the visits that most interest them.
According to the Macanese businessman, there will also be a ‘business matching’ session between Portuguese businessmen and businessmen from Macau, Hengqin and Greater Bay. “Includes distribution of food and beverage products, supermarkets and a visit to the premises of the Economic and Commercial Delegation of Macau in Lisbon.”
For José Luís Sales Marques, president of the Macau Institute of European Studies, the business delegation travels with concrete objectives. “It seems to me that the objectives are clear and boil down to resuming contacts with the Portuguese business world and exploring new opportunities.”
While Ambrósio considers that “there is really a lack” of more sessions to attract investment for Greater Bahia in the program, Sales Marques believes that these will be included in future delegations. “I think it’s important to promote Greater Bay as an integrated tourist destination”, says the economist to PLATAFORMA.
