blogmacau.info

blogmacau.info reviews some major events in Macau over the past 12 months, month by month.

January
- A mother and her son were injured when playing a tub ride at the Fisherman's Wharf on 3 January, only three days after its soft opening.
- Macau experienced the worst salt tide in history. The population rushed to supermarkets to buy bottled water for consumption.

February
- The Commission Against Corruption arrested 11 Customs Officers and two employees working for a cargo shipping company in connection with collective corruption.

March
- A series of murder cases happened in northern Macau, of which a husband committed suicide after killing his wife and his eight-year-old son with “religious” motives.

April
- Vice-President of mainland China Zeng Qinghong (´¿¼y¬õ) told the Chief Executive Ho Hau Wah at the Boao Forum for Asia's annual conference to appropriately diversify Macau's economy.

May
- More than 3,000 demonstrators had clashes with police on the May Day Parade over disputes on routes. The clashes made Macau's city centre into a standstill.
- Consequent measures were undertaken by the construction sector after the parade, including employment fairs organised by contractors. They concluded after the fairs that the unemployment situation was “not serious”.

June
- The Fujian community doubted the investigation approach by the Judiciary Police over the death of a 19-year-old at the Fisherman's Wharf.

July
- Banks in Macau began five-day-week from the 1st.
- Four officers at the Statistics and Census Bureau filed a case at the Administrative Court over “sexual harassment” and “persecution” allegations.

August
- A series of traffic accidents involving the same batch of TCM buses happened, including a number 17 bus rushing against head-on traffic at ZAPE. The concerned batch was pulled out of service after three other accidents within the same month.
- A Macau casino VIP room manager couple, commonly known in the circle as “Auntie Cat”, were found murdered in a golf course in Zhuhai. Police in that city claimed that the couple had asked her second brother to kill them because of debt problems.

September
- Wynn Macau opened.
- An officer from the Statistics and Census Bureau, who was involved in a “persecution” allegation, was found jumping from her flat and died.

October
- Macau hosted the 1st Lusofonia Games.
- A footballer from Cape Verde participating in the Lusofonia Games was arrested in connection with raping a student from mainland China.
- The modified LRT plan was announced, with predicted total investment of MOP 4.2 billion.
- Star World Hotel opened amid concerns over its structural safety.

November
- The 4th East Asian Games was found overspent by 50.6%.

December
- Then Secretary for Transport and Public Works Ao Man Long (¼Ú¤åÀs) was arrested in connection with corruption. He was exonerated on the same day. It is likely that billions of Patacas were connected with his case.
- Macau overtook Las Vegas in gaming revenue during the first ten months of the year, making it the largest gaming city in the world.

The Chief Executive Ho Hau Wah (¦ó«pôó) claimed that Macau's economy is in the process of being diversified.

He told reporters who were covering his visit to Beijing that his point was proved by recent revenue figures.

Macau's total public revenue will reach MOP 27 billion, MOP 19 billion, or about 70%, of which will come from casions.

He claimed that, although gaming revenue still occupies a higher proportion in the total amount of revenue for the Government, such proportion has dropped compared with some 80% at peak times.

He also pointed out that current tax waivers could mean that revenue from other sources would be higher.

He admitted that there is still a long way to a suitable diversification of Macau's economy, but other sectors of the economy, particularly conference and exhibition, retail, hotels and integrated leisure sectors, are being motivated by the gaming sector and “are developing healthily”.

Ho pledged for more support to small, medium and traditional business, so that they can continue to develop.

Meanwhile, Ho's Government was fully affirmed by mainland Chinese leaders when he reported his duties to them in Beijing.

President Hu Jintao (­JÀAÀÜ) expressed hopes that the Macau Government and people from all walks of life will work together to push Macau's development forward.

Premier Wen Jiabao (·Å®aûÑ) told Ho that he would like to visit Macau one day, as he has not been there before.

The Macau Government has submitted to the Central Government a report on the Ao Man Long incident, revealed the Chief Executive Ho Hau Wah (¦ó«pôó).

He told reporters that a despatch has been received from Beijing, requesting the Macau Government to learn from the lessons and experiences of this incident.

However, he did not reveal the details of the report, and he also said that he did not know too much details about the case now, as it has proceeded into the judiciary procedures.

Meanwhile, reform measures will be undertaken next year to improve “the relevant institutions”.

The candidacy for the new Secretary for Transport and Public Works was not discussed when he reported his duties to state leaders in Beijing, Ho said.

The Chief Executive Ho Hau Wah (¦ó«pôó) told reporters that the suitable candidate for the Secretary for Transport and Public Works could only be due after January.

He said before setting off for Beijing to report his duties to the Central Government that he will not talk about the candidacy during his visit this time.

Meanwhile, Deputy Director of the Hong Kong Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, Chen Zuoer (³¯¦õ¬|) told reporters when welcoming Ho at the airport in Beijing that the Central Government will, as ever, support Macau Government to govern, to exercise the rule of law and to combat corruption.

Chen also said that the Ao Man Long incident will not affect the Central Government's high evaluation on the performance of the Macau Government, stressing that the incident “is something that is extremely isolated”, and that “the confidence should be even stronger”.

He also praised the Commission Against Corruption's performance after the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region.

Ho will be received by mainland Chinese state leaders today, with meetings with Premier Wen Jiabao (·Å®aûÑ) in the morning, and President Hu Jintao (­JÀAÀÜ) and Vice-President Zeng Qinghong (´¿¼y¬õ) in the afternoon.

Communications with the outside world were affected by the earthquake at Luzon Strait near Taiwan on 26 December.

The Bureau for Telecommunications Regulations said that it is “difficult to estimate” when services will return to normal, but pledged to maintain close contact with CTM, Macau's only landline communications and Internet service provider, to keep the effects as little as possible.

CTM claimed that the effect of the breakdown of the six undersea cables, four of which are known to be broken and two further are damaged, is “small for Macau”, given more than 60% of Macau's external communications aim for mainland China and Hong Kong.

Long distance calls have basically resumed to normal last night (27 December) apart from calling to Taiwan, and websites based in Japan, South Korea, the US and Taiwan can also be connected.

The undersea cables affected are the China-US Cable Network, APC-1, APC-2, FLAG, TAE and FNAL.

The accusations made in a new Audit Commission report due to be published today has been rigidly denied by the Health Service.

In the report on the use, maintenance and voidance of medical equipments worth MOP 150,000 or more, the Audit Commission pointed out the Health Service did not have detailed planning and consideration in acquisition, and that the two internal monitoring mechanisms have failed to work.

Documentation is “messy”, with nearly half of the sampled equipments being failed to provide exact usage record, the report further pointed out, and there are no clear guidelines over the maintenance of the equipments.

The report also criticises the divisions of the Health Service the failure to deal with the voidance of the equipments well enough, and no mechanism is set up to assess the usage of them.

The Health Service responded to these accusations, saying that it is their priority to save lives of the population and to effectively enhance the service quality and levels of the only public hospital in Macau.

In further response, the Audit Commission said that they respect the Health Service's policy to give life-saving a priority, but there is no conflict between saving lives and better use of public funds.

The report has been submitted to the Chief Executive and the Legislative Assembly for perusal.

Residents in five more mainland Chinese cities will be allowed to travel individually to Hong Kong and Macau from 1 January 2007.

They are Shijiazhuang (¥Û®a²ø), Zhengzhou (¾G¦{), Changchun (ªø¬K), Hefei (¦XªÎ) and Wuhan (ªZº~).

About 36.5 million people will benefit for this measure, according to estimation by authorities in the mainland.

Residents in the neighbouring province of Guangdong were first permitted to visit Hong Kong and Macau on their own from 28 July 2003. Since then, 49 cities with a total of over 250 million people have enjoyed or will enjoy this privilege.

The complete list of these mainland Chinese cities, as on 1 January 2007, is as follows:

All cities in Guangdong Province
Shanghai
Beijing
Fuzhou (ºÖ¦{)
Xiamen (·Hªù)
Quanzhou (¬u¦{)
Nanjing
Suzhou (Ĭ¦{)
Wushi (µL¿ü)
Hangzhou (ªC¦{)
Ningbo
Taizhou (¥x¦{)
Tianjin
Certain parts of Chongqing
Jinan (ÀÙ«n)
Dalian (¤j³s)
Shenyang (Ân¶§)
Nanchang («n©÷)
Changsha (ªø¨F)
Nanning («n¹ç)
Haikou (®ü¤f)
Guiyang (¶Q¶§)
Kunming (©ø©ú)

Updates to blogmacau.info may be affected over the next few days, due to the breakdown of communications cables as a result of the earthquake at Luzon Strait on 26 December.

A summary of news on 26 December:

Tremor
Tremor was felt in
large areas of Macau at about 20:30 when two earthquakes measuring over
seven in Richter Scale were recorded in the seas southwest of Taiwan.

Taxis
Biddings
are invited for 50 new, non-transferable taxi licences due to be issued
by the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau. These new licences will last
for only eight years and will not be extended.

Macau has ranked the fourth in the ten most congested cities in the world by the US-based financial magazine.

The indicator for congestion is calculated based on the population and vehicle density per square kilometre.

Macau has a total area of 28.2 sq. km and a population of 508,500 and a total of 160,900 vehicles by the end of the third quarter of 2006.

The most congested cities in the world, by ranking, are Manila, Cairo, Lagos, Macau, Seoul, Darka, Buenos Aires, Jarkarta, Kaohsuing and San Domingo.

Legislator Lau Pun Lap (¼B¥»¥ß) pointed out that being listed by Forbes is not a good thing for Macau's tourism and investment, and hoped the Government should take tough measures to control vehicle growth and tougher parking restrictions.

Meanwhile, the Macao Daily News reported that the Government is studying the feasibility to redistribute the right of use on certain roads and streets.