|
Macau: Preparing For Sustainable Development
Following its return to Chinese sovereignty, Macau has entered into a new era of "One-country two-systems" Macau people ruling Macau" and an opportunity for reconstruction and development. Since 1995, Macau's economy has undergone a downturn. Investment sentiment is low and unemployment has reached 6.7%. Moreover, the quality of the work force is not high. More than 70% of the working population have had only primary or junior secondary education and this has affected the economic transformation of the territory. Apart from her limited space and small population, Macau has also been handicapped by a poor business environment, imperfect legal and market systems, a bureaucratic administration and above all, a general lack of high quality and innovative human resources. Entering into a new Millennium, Macau must rise to the challenge of globalization, trade liberalization, and the proliferation of information technology. These have changed the nature of international competition. Innovative thinking, effective use of technology, rapid assess to new information and quick response to new challenges are crucial for the enhancement of overall value-addedness and productivity and for maintaining the competitiveness of Macau. Sustainable development depends on whether we can identify and develop Macau's own comparative advantage, and re-position the territory for exploration of new opportunity and growth. Positioning Macau for Sustainable Development in the 21st Century With the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government, Macau needs to overcome her limitations and return to a path of sustainable growth. Besides the needs to improve on her public security and international image, the SAR Government must position Macau for future development. In this regard, many experts have conducted extensive studies. Results from these studies suggest that the SAR should focus on those areas of unique qualities in order to differentiate Macau from her neighbours. Besides maintaining her position as a free port under the framework of "One-country two-systems" Macau should transform into a city for comprehensive tourism and a service support center for trade and manufacturing. A historical venue for the East meeting the West, Macau has all the potential to diversify into many areas of tourism and entertainment. She should move beyond the current focus on gambling to sightseeing tourism, cultural tourism, business tourism, conference tourism, and exhibition tourism. (See the chart below)
Enhancing Macau's Ability To Participate In The Development of the Regional Economy Macau needs to expand the scope of its economic activities in order to bring about sustainable development. It is of paramount importance that Macau cooperates with her neighbours and enhances her ability to participate in regional development. The idea of regional cooperation has been fully endorsed by the two SAR Chief Executives. In his third Policy Address, Mr. C. H. Tung, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR put forward a proposal for a joint development of the Pearl River Delta Region (PRDR). He suggested that there would be plenty of scope for Hong Kong-Macau cooperation. Similarly, Mr. Edmund H. W. Ho, the Chief Executive of the Macau SAR, in his inaugural speech also pointed out that Macau, Hong Kong and the PRDR should work closer together. Indeed, Macau's return to Chinese sovereignty will assist in the formation of a South China Economic Region (SCER) comprising the PRDR, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian. This SCER will generate further development in trade and other economic activities. For Hong Kong, the enlargement of her service sector clusters to include the lower-cost center of Macau would further extend her competitive advantage as the leading financial and trading center in Asia. Macau has some special qualities acting as an economic intermediary. She has long economic and cultural ties with Europe and the Portuguese speaking countries. Macau is also a fast conduit for Taiwanese visitors to the Mainland as the territory is the only place through which cross-straits direct flights are conducted on a "touch down and go" basis. These advantages enable Macau to become a service center for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) from Mainland China, Taiwan, Europe, and the Portuguese speaking countries. A Macau support center for SMEs supplementary to that for large corporations which Hong Kong is providing will create a powerful service support cluster for China and Southeast Asia. With re-unification, experts are confident that the tripartite cooperation among Macau, Mainland China, and Hong Kong will enhance mutual benefits. However, the magnitude of success depends on our ability to overcome the barriers formed by the framework of "One-country two-systems" These obstacles arise from the differences in governmental structures, legal systems, commercial practices and vested interests. Therefore mechanisms for communication and cooperation at private, semi-government and government levels must be established to smooth the way. Macau should set up a liaison mechanism not only with the Central Government but also with neighbouring provinces as well as the Hong Kong SAR. Better cooperation and increased mobility of people, goods, services and capital will further integrate the overall economic development of Macau, Hong Kong and PRDR, and will generate greater economic development for the SCER. With globalization, the coming of the knowledge-based era, and China's entry to the World Trade Organization, Macau will face both opportunities and challenges. Under these conditions, the key to sustainable development is liberalization, reform, and continuous upgrading. Recent experience in Mainland China demonstrates that economic advancement depends on liberalization and reform. If Macau continues to be conservative and reacts slowly to change, she will soon be overtaken by some of the major cities in the Mainland. Therefore, it is imperative for Macau to (1) provide an open and fair business environment; (2) promote entrepreneurialship; (3) foster innovation; (4) encourage continuous learning; and (5) popularize the use of technology with the ultimate aim to move towards a knowledge-based economy. Wealth-Creating Productivity of Macau in the 21st Century Dr. Andy Grove of Intel once said, "if a country failed to connect with the world through the Internet, it would be severely handicapped in the competitive world." Indeed, the paradigm shift caused by disruptive technologies and globalization has intensified the rate of competition and changed the way for wealth creation. This prompts us to examine human factors that are essential for wealth-creation in the 21st century. The following factors appears to be vital: The first factor is creativity. In a knowledge-based economy, creativity is the most important factor for wealth creation. Computers cannot replace the creativity of human beings. Creativity includes innovative ideas and imagination. There is no limit, as creativity breeds creativity and allows for taking advantage of new opportunities. The second factor is the ability to apply technology. A US think-tank, the Hudson Institute, stated in its book "Workforce 2020" that in the 21st century, people who could master technology would have a competitive edge over others. The use of high and/or new technology is for the enhancement of productivity, quality and value-addedness of goods and services. As technology is only a tool, its application should be across all sectors of the economy including such traditional sectors as tourism and gambling, banking and insurance, transportation, wholesale and retailer business. For example, the effective use of technology for cost reduction and quick response to market and product innovation will enhance wealth-creation and competitiveness of traditional enterprises. The third factor is the effective management and use of knowledge. The 21st century will embrace an information explosion. With the use of technology, information can be generated, distributed and disseminated very rapidly, resulting in information bombardment. Under such conditions, we have to learn how to screen and classify and integrate information into useful knowledge for effective use. Good information management is an important competitive edge over others. The fourth factor is the ability to adapt to change. In this fast moving world, conditions do change rapidly. The only thing that will remain unchanged is change itself. The advantage one enjoys today could disappear tomorrow because of change. Changes do create opportunities and challenges. Whether it is an opportunity or a challenge depends on the attitude of the individual. There are three attitudes towards change: (i) To stay put. This is passive and not acceptable; (ii) To react to change. This is more positive; and (iii) To change in order to keep ahead of change, and this is the most positive. In order to handle change one needs to think clearly and be open-minded. To keep ahead of the game, one must be able to predict, understand and control the development of upcoming changes. As Darwin said, the survivor was not the strongest or the smartest but the one who could adapt to change the quickest. Education and training are necessary to enhance future competitiveness. The quality of our human resources is directly related to our ability to create wealth. Thus Macau needs to educate her population and attract talent from outside to strengthen her human resource pool. As new knowledge and skills are developed rapidly, we need to become continuous learners. Enterprises need to become learning organizations and society needs to become a learning society. Only through continuous learning can we accumulate knowledge and stay ahead of the game. To expedite the learning process, Macau is in urgent need of a group of talented intermediaries with global perspective, knowledge of new technology and networking to assist our enterprises?transformation. There is also a need to nurture a new generation of entrepreneurs with the ability to create new ideas, innovate and form new enterprises. The dynamism of Macau's economic future depends on our ability to achieve the above goals. Professor Michael Porter pointed out in his book "Comparative Advantage of Nations? that it was impossible for a country or a region to be competitive across all sectors of the economy. Indeed, Macau's sustainable development depends on the optimization of her unique resources. From a gambling base, Macau can expand into comprehensive tourism featuring cultures of East meeting West and to become a service support center for SMEs and ultimately into a knowledge-based economy. As we embark on our road to sustainable development, we must remind ourselves of the study conducted by Professor Robert M. Solow, on stages of economic development. The study indicated that premature abandonment of manufacturing and over-reliance on the service sector could weaken the foundation for a solid development of the service sector, resulting in lower growth and even recession. Dr. Eric T.M. Yeung is the Chairman of the Macau Productivity & Technology Transfer Center.
|
