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Macau Internal
6. Dr Fereira da Silva said that Macau was too small to grow economically as Hong Kong had done. The Chinese seemed to want it to become a financial centre rather than an industrial one. He played down Governor Almeida e Costa's talk of dramatic growth just over the horizon. The main problem was interesting Portuguese companies in investing in Macau. They were also trying to attract investment from Macau in Portugal.
7.
He admitted that there was some pressure for electoral reform in Macau, but that it was not substantial. The Chinese had made it clear that the territory was under Portuguese administration, and therefore the government should be made up of Portuguese citizens and so should most of the Assembly. It would be provocation to reform the system of representation or to include more ethnic Chinese. The ethnic Chinese showed little enthusiasm for voting.
8. Dr Fereira da Silva added that there had been a problem of illegal immigrants passing through Macau on their way o Hong Kong, but said that this had now stopped. The new airport was at the planning stage, and they hoped to think about building in the near future.
Macau and the EC
Eur
9. Dr Fereira da Silva said that he was sure that Macau would see a better status inside the EC than Hong Kong. T Macau government has a representative on the Portuguese Com ssion for
ean Integration and he would probably bid for 'o rseas tory status'. He agreed that Portugal was unliky to achieve but suggested that other member states of the Co unity might suport Portugal for their own reasons.
tex
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1 F tember 1982
J N Powell
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