Former culture minister Fernando Chui (崔世安) was yesterday named the new chief executive of Macau on a pledge to diversify the gambling hub’s economy and rid the Chinese territory of corruption.
Chui, 52, succeeds Edmund Ho (何厚鏵), who led the Macau government since the former Portuguese colony returned to Chinese rule in 1999 and oversaw the liberalization of the territory’s gaming sector in 2002.
Macau, which has a population of 550,000 people, has a separate legal system from China and is the only place on Chinese soil where casino gambling is allowed. Chui’s election was a formality because he was the only candidate. He won the support of 282, or 94 percent, of the southern Chinese city’s 300-strong chief executive electoral committee, formed mostly by people with ties to Beijing.
Chui said after yesterday’s vote that the city needed to do more to reduce its economic reliance on the casino business.
“Since we opened up the gaming market, we have seen a big change in the operation mode and the scale of the business,” he told reporters. “The change includes the launch of a lot more integrated entertainment and leisure projects. I personally feel that we should go towards this direction, to suitably diversify the economy.”
Since Macau’s gaming market was liberalized in 2002, it has overtaken Las Vegas and Atlantic City combined in terms of gaming revenue as gleaming foreign and locally owned resorts have sprung up.
However, the staggering growth has suffered in the past 12 months as Chinese authorities, concerned about the problems of gambling and corruption, have limited the number of visitors to the gaming haven from mainland China.
Chui said that he would actively develop the convention, Chinese medicine, logistics and education sectors.
He also said he planned to work to attract more Taiwanese tourists to Macau, taking advantage of recently improved relations between Beijing and Taipei.
The new Macau leader has also pledged to fight corruption, which has cast a shadow over the territory’s success. Former transport and public works minister Ao Man-long (歐文龍) was jailed in April for 28-and-a-half years after being convicted on dozens of graft charges including money laundering and bribe taking.
Ao’s case touched on some construction work for the city’s highest-profile resorts.
Chui himself came under scrutiny over a controversial government deal that saw a piece of public land given to his elder brother at a below-market price in 2006. The new leader has denied any involvement in the land grant.
Jose Coutinho, a Macau lawmaker and one of 14 election committee members who cast a blank vote yesterday, said Chui’s priority should be to revamp the method of electing the chief executive.
“It is not democratic. It’s not in accordance with the [constitutional] law,” he said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS