Macau Daily News (English)

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After the rollout of the automated passenger clearance auto-gates (e-channels) at Lo Wu control point, Hong Kong permanent residents (aged 11 or above) holding smart identity cards may also use the six e-channels in the departure hall of Macao Ferry Terminal control point to perform self-service departure clearance from Thursday.

An Immigration Department spokesman said the six e-channels were now open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. The department will review the operating situation with a view to extend the opening hours of the e-channels.

People were reminded that if their thumbs were too dry or too moist, the scanner's ability to read the thumbprint would be affected. To avoid delay, the user can use a traditional counter for clearance.

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The number of new companies setting up to catch the economic boom in Macao is increasing sharply with a total of 713 companies newly incorporated in the first quarter of 2005.

Information released by the Macao Statistics and Census Service on Tuesday showed that the number of newly incorporated companies and their registered capital increased 51.7 percent and 29.5 percent, respectively, over the first quarter of 2004. New companies reported 108.28 million patacas (13.5 million US dollars) in registered capital.

These newly incorporated companies are mostly in wholesale and retail sector, followed by real estate, construction and business services.

Among the stockholders of the new companies, 60.8 percent are Macao residents. The capital of the companies mostly came from Macao, followed by Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands. Guangdong Province topped the list of capital coming from the provinces within the Pan-Pearl River Delta Region in South China.

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China's Macau Special Administrative Region recorded 4.45 million visitor arrivals in the first quarter, an increase of 18.8 percent from the same period of 2004, according to official statistics on Friday.
Figures from the Macau Statistics and Census Service (MSCS) showed that the region, which registers 465,000 residents, hugged in 596,860 package tourists in the quarter, a 9.8 percent year-on- year increase.
Chinese mainlanders made up some 75 percent of the package-tour arrivals in March, according to the statistics.
Macau's 74 hotels and boarding houses accommodated 909,768 guests in the first quarter, almost flat on the same period of 2004, according to the MSCS figures.
The statistics showed that hotel guests accounted for 40.4 percent of the total number of tourists in the quarter.
Famed for its gaming industry and a mixture of western and eastern cultures, Macau has long been a charming destination for world travelers.

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18/5/2005 15:47

China's Macau Special Administrative Region predicts a 20-million tourist stream this year, local media reported on Wednesday.
The Macau Post quoted Joao Antunes, director of Macau Government Tourist Office, as saying that the number of tourist arrivals is hopefully to range from 19 million to 20 million.
The official told the newspaper that tightening of restriction by China's central government on gaming involvement of governmental employees will not cause huge damage to Macau's tourism.
Gaming is not the only selling point of Macau's tourism, Antunes said, adding that historic and scenery spots in Macau are also attractive to visitors.
He said that in the first quarter the region recorded 4.45 million visitor arrivals, a strong indicator for a powerful tourism booming this year.
Concerned authorities in Macau have been in a hard bid to promote tourism and to make policy adjustment to hug in more tourists, said the official.
Famed for its gaming industry and a mixture of western and eastern cultures, Macau has long been a charming destination for world travelers.

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The Macao agent of a Taiwan-made energy drink branded "Bullwild" has announced a total recall of the goods due to poison scare, local media reported Thursday.

The Macau Post quoted sources from Bullwild's Macao company as saying that there are 2,640 bottles of the beverage on sale or in stock and the recall will be completed within one day.

Bullwild's Taiwan company launched an emergency recall of the beverage earlier this week after four people were reportedly poisoned by the product on the island.

Police suspect that someone laced the drink with cyanide before placing it on store shelves, Taiwan media reported.

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China`s Macao Special Administrative Region recorded 4.45 million visitor arrivals in the first quarter, an increase of 18.8 percent from the same period of 2004 , according to official statistics on Friday.

Figures from the Macao Statistics and Census Service (MSCS) showed that the region, which registers 465,000 residents, hugged in 596,860 package tourists in the quarter, a 9.8 percent year-on-year increase.

Chinese mainlanders made up some 75 percent of the package-tour arrivals in March, according to the statistics.

Macao`s 74 hotels and boarding houses accommodated 909,768 guests in the first quarter, almost flat on the same period of 2004, according to the MSCS figures. The statistics showed that hotel guests accounted for 40.4 percent of the total number of tourists in the quarter.

Famed for its gaming industry and a mixture of western and eastern cultures, Macao has long been a charming destination for world travelers.

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China's Macau Special Administrative Region is studying the feasibility of setting up a "Chinese Medicine Park," local media reported Friday.
The Macau Post quoted Yeung Tsun Man, member of Macau's Science and Technology Council, as saying that Macau is able to build a " small-scale but high-quality" Chinese medicine industrial park.
Yeung told the newspaper that 13 Chinese Medicine manufacturers are based in the region with a population of only 450,000.
Macau could serve as an international "testing center" for Chinese medicine standards, said Yeung.
A Pan-Pearl River Delta Forum and Exhibition for Chinese Medicine will be held in Macau from June 21 to 23, which will hopefully raise Macau's ambition to act as an access for traditional Chinese medicine leading to the international market, local analysts said.
With over 90 percent of its population as Chinese ancestry, Macau has a long history of using Chinese medicine and traditional Chinese treatment has enjoyed a great popularity here.

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Hong Kong and Macau prisoners can now serve out their sentences in their home city, under a new agreement between the two jurisdictions.

The Arrangement on Transfer of Sentenced Persons was signed today by Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee and his Macanese counterpart Cheong Kuoc Va.

It lets prisoners to do their time in their place of origin, allowing friends and relatives to visit them on a regular basis and helping their rehabilitation.

It adds to similar agreements Hong Kong has with the US, the UK, Sri Lanka, Italy, Thailand, the Philippines and Portugal.

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Macao will hold a forum on traditional Chinese medicine in late June this year.
The forum will discuss research and commercialization of traditional Chinese medicine as well as technology innovation and market supervision related to medicine.

Meanwhile, an exhibition will be held on production and packaging of traditional medicine.

More than three hundred experts and researchers from China, the United States, Britain and Sweden will attend the three-day forum that starts on June 21.

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Macao Special Administrative Region is to promote tourism through the help of Visa International , the world credit-card giant.

It was announced here Tuesday at a press conference that Visa has launched a promotional campaign entitled "Visa Treasure Hunt" to offer "treasures" for Visa card-holders visiting Macao till June 30.

Prudence Chan, Visa`s Country Manager for Hong Kong and Macao, told the briefing that the program "gained great support" from Macao`s Tourist Office.

Manuel Antunes, director of the Tourist Office, said Macao continues to grow in statue as a top visitor destination and Visa has made it easy for tourists to enjoy everything the city has to offer.

Visa card-holders who visit Macao and spend with their cards could get "Scratch Win Card" to gain prizes including mobile phones, hotel and dining vouchers, said Chan, the Visa manager.

The Visa customers could also get exclusive merchant offers as discounts and free gifts, she added.

Visa`s overseas card-holders spent 2.4 billion paracas (300 million US dollars) in Macao in 2004, a 33-percent year-on-year growth, Chan said.

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China's Ministry of Commerce said it has decided to remove export duties on textile products that are produced on the mainland under outward processing arrangements (OPA) but tagged as Macau-originated goods.

The commerce ministry did not say what the current export duties are on Macau textile OPA exports in the brief statement on its website.

A similar decision was made yesterday for Hong Kong textile products produced on the China mainland.

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MACAU and HONG KONG, May 26 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Gammon Building
Construction (Macau) Limited and its Macau Partner, Mei Cheong Construction
Co. Ltd., today held a ceremony to mark the commencement of work on the
Venetian Macao hotel tower, the first superstructure development on the Cotai Strip.

Valued at HK$2.6 billion, this Venetian Macao hotel tower is Gammon's
largest ever building contract. "Venetian Macao not only marks the beginning
of another chapter in Gammon's development in Macau, building on our
involvement in the Macau Tower foundation works in 1998, but also the
beginning of our relationship with the Client, Las Vegas Sands Corp," says
Martin Hadaway, Chief Executive of Gammon.

Gammon along with parties involved signed an Occupational Safety & Health
Charter at the ceremony. This Charter aims to demonstrate a mutual commitment to safe working practices on the project through close co-operation and dedication.

Gammon will implement its OHSAS 18001 Health and Safety system procedures to help ensure the delivery of high standards of safety on this project.

The project covers a total gross floor area of approximately 350,000
square meters and includes a 32-storey tower that will provide about 3,000
hotel suites, and a six-level podium. The hotel is part of the Venetian Macao
casino resort hotel complex.

A workforce of nearly 2,500 will be engaged at the peak construction
period.

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An education reform conference is slated to be held at the University of Macau May 28-29, with scholars and senior professors in education from Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong and mainland China expected to take part. The annual conference, first held in 1996, is being co-sponsored by the colleges of education of the University of Macau and Taiwan's Tamkang University. Seven education reformers and scholars from the four areas are scheduled to deliver keynote speeches at the conference. Taiwan's education reform commentator professor Huang Kuang-kuo and professor Huang Jung-tsun, a former minister of education who has been involved in governmental work to implement education policy, will be among the seven speech givers, according to the conference organizers. In addition to the speeches, research papers from more than 150 scholars from 60 colleges, universities and education institutes in the four areas will be released at the conference.

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Seventeen suspects have been apprehended in Macao allegedly involved in the pre-election fraud, an anti-corruption commission press release said here on Thursday.

The press release, issued by the Commission Against Corruption(CCAC), said the suspected, "illegally holding the certificates ofconstituencies," have been transferred to the Public Prosecution.

The case was the first of its kind in the run-up to the legislative elections scheduled for Sept. 25.

The CCAC urged the Macao citizens to report "any election crime" to the authorities, said the press release, adding that a hot-line for the purpose has been opened.

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An illegal bookmaking group was cracked by the police in China's Macao Special Administrative Region, local media reported Tuesday.

The Macao Post quoted police sources as saying that the six detained suspects allegedly had a monthly betting turnover of 140 million HK dollars (17.7 million US dollars) and a monthly net profit of over one million HK dollars (120,000 US dollars).

The bookmaking ring had been operating in Macao since 2003 and processing bets on the Italian league soccer matches, according tothe newspaper.

Most of the clients were from Southeast Asian countries, the report said, adding that the illegal bookmakers had set up their Internet website to attract punters.

The Macao police had been tracing the gang, membering four HongKong residents and two Macao citizens, for three months and had been imposing undercover surveillance on it for weeks, said the report.

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The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Friday announced the opening of 100,000 employment opportunities in Hong Kong Disneyland and 200 job openings in Macau.

POEA administrator Rosalinda D. Baldoz said most of the job openings for Hong Kong Disneyland are for professional ballet dancers and singers that will play Disney characters at theme park's shows.

"Interested applicants can apply on-line at the theme park's web site at www.hongkongdisneyland.com. I believe they do their recruitment via teleconferencing," Baldoz said.

She added that HP Disneyland has yet to accredit a local agency to provide workers for the theme park.

She said Macau is also looking for 200 skilled workers to fill various job vacancies including gaming supervisory positions, security guards, hotel workers, medical workers, pharmacists and university instructors.

She added that a full listing of available overseas job openings is available on the POEA web site (www.poea.gov.ph).

She said a local agency, Ad International with telephone number 813-3000, handles all the recruitment for Macau.

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Macao's daily demand for tap water may reach a record of 200,000 cubic meters later this year, local media reported Monday.

The Macau Post quoted Oscar Chu Wai Man, deputy general managerof the Macao Water company, as saying that the highest demand for tap water peaked at 182,229 cubic meters on July 28, 2003.

Chu told the newspaper that the rising demand for tap water in the special administrative region is due to the growing number of hotels, casinos and visitors.

The Macao Water is in negotiations with the concerned authorities in Zhuhai, a neighboring mainland city, to build a new water-supply pipeline, Chu said.

Both sides are hopefully to strike an agreement by the end of this year, he added.

The Macao Water company signed a 25-year water-supply concession agreement with the administration in 1985.

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MACAO, May 30 (Xinhuanet) -- Macao will have a record of 210,000 registered voters in this autumn's legislative polls, local media reported Monday.

The Macau Post quoted Jose Chu, director of the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP), as saying that in the previous 2001 legislative elections, the number of registered voters stood at 163,659.

The special administrative region, with a population of over 460,000, will hold "direct and indirect" legislative elections on September 25, according to the newspaper.

It reported that the future legislature will have 29 members, as against the current number of 27. The number of legislators directly elected by the universal suffrage will be increased from 10 to 12.

The number of indirectly elected and officially appointed lawmakers will remain unchanged at 10 and seven, respectively, said the report.

The indirect ballot will be held by the representatives of community, business, labor and sports associations. Enditem

[SeeMacau]

Some 400 residents are killed every year in China's Macao Special Administrative Region, which has a population of over 460,000, local media reported Tuesday.

The Macau Post quoted sources from the Health Bureau as saying that lung cancer is the major cause of those cancer deaths, followed by breast cancer and colon cancer.

Stressing that cancer is Macao's number one killer, the newspaper reminded residents of the fact that around one third of cancers are preventable by quitting smoking.

Thirty-four percent of Macao's male residents and 4 percent of its female residents are smokers, according to the Health Bureau sources.

The Macau Post also urged people to stick to a healthy life style covering balanced diets and regular physical exercises.

[SeeMacau]

A senior official from Macao says the SAR government will make further efforts to promote the region's traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, in the international market.

Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao SAR Government, Chui Sai On, made the remarks at the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of a regional TCM association.

He said the SAR government will improve regulations and provide training to promote healthcare services using traditional Chinese medicine while encouranging the research, development and application of TCM.

He added traditional medicine is part of the Chinese national legacy, and the Macao SAR government will step up cooperation with the mainland in the TCM industry.