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An NCNA report from Lisbon said the Portuguese Prime Minister, Cavaco e Silva, at a meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Portugal, Chen Ziying, on Thursday, said it was a satisfactory agreement and believed it was in the interests of both countries and would benefit the stability and development of Macau. The Prime Minister would go to Peking in the middle of next month to formally sign the agreement on Macau.
The HK Standard quoted Ke Zhengping, a deputy to the NPC, as saying in Peking on Thursday that Macau would conduct direct elections to choose local representatives to the NPC. He did not say whether HK would follow suit.
The acting Governor of Macau, Dr Carlos Monjardino, told RTHK's "Newsplus" on ATV-Diamond
that he was expecting an agreement between China and Portugal but he had not expected it to be signed as soon as on March 26. He said a large majority of the people in Macau were quite pleased with the Portuguese administration.
On the future of the casinos in Macau, Dr Monjardino said that gambling in Macau had an enormous weight and that China would perhaps have to think twice if it wanted to ban gambling in the enclave.
This view was shared by Macau Legislative Assembly member Alexandre Ho, who said the casinos and gambling until now contributed over 40 per cent of government revenue. If China did not allow gambling, it had to find a way to keep Macau alive, he said.
University of East Asia rector Paul Lin told the programme that the agreement was more than a formalisation of the so-called China-dominated status quo in Macau because there were issues like the nationality question that needed to be solved and now they had been solved through the agreement.
Alexandre Ho told Radio-3 that there was no need to set up a Basic Law consultative committee in Macau. He said there were already many well-established associations of various fields in Macau and consultation on the Basic Law could be done through them.
On RTHK's "Pentaprism"
should have no worries over their future.
Dr Monjardino said Macanese civil servants
Alexandre Ho told TVB-Pearl's "Focus"
that the nationality solution in
the Macau agreement should allow quite a free choice to the present holders of the Portuguese passport. He said the nationality issue was a very practical concern because Macau was so small and its people had always thought of going to other places for further development.
Holding a different view, the head of the Government and Administration Depart- ment of the University of East Asia, Dr Wun Kin-wah, said Chinese holders of Portuguese passports were not very concerned over the nationality issue because they did not like to leave Macau, which they treated as their hometown. They were also optimistic about China's economic and political reforms which would provide a promising future for them.
Referring to the relationship between HK and Macau, Alexandre Ho felt that the two places should co-operate more closely in future because they were now in the same boat. He said if Macau lost its present system and became a socialist territory, HK people's confidence might be affected.