Macau, China, 16 Mai – The government of Macau has set up a Centre for Sustainable Development Strategies (CEEDS), which aims to support it in defining development policies and strategies, officials said.

According to an official statement issued Monday, the Chief Executive of the Macau government, Edmund Ho, said that the center would support, “the Government in formulating public strategies and policies for sustainable development, which will contribute to ensure harmonious compatibility between economic, social and environmental objectives and a progressive improvement of the quality of life of the Macau population.”

In a notice published in the Official Bulletin, Ho said the center needed to be created in order to ensure the “sustainability of the development process,” and the “progressive elevation of quality of life of the resident population within the framework of boosted regional integration and cooperation with the Great Pearl River Delta Region and the Asia-Pacific Region.”

The internationalization of the Macau economy, particularly as a platform for promoting cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries were also reasons given for setting up the new center to support the government.

The phase of rapid development that Macau is currently undergoing due to high investment in tourism, leisure, sport and conventions has forced the government to “carry out diagnostic studies of the current and prospective situations that take into consideration demographic tendencies and their repercussions on the education, health and social security systems.

The pressure placed on quality of life and the environment by economic and urban growth, the challenges of education and training of human resources for the information society and issues related to the possible diversification of the economic structure are also factors the new center will take into account. (macauhub)