Entrepreneurship Transformation in Macau
First of all, I would like to congratulate the GW October Conference for its 10th Anniversary. Its achievement in entrepreneurship research and the endeavours to preach it to the free world should be exalted.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just spent 16 hours on a plane and traveled 8,179 kilometers to come here for this occasion and I believe you can imagine that I must have come from a place very far away.
Yes it is correct. I have come from a small peninsular in the southern part of China and adjacent to Hong Kong, the internationally renowned financial city. The small city where I maintain my livelihood is called Macau. It was a small Portuguese colony for more than 400 years and was little known to the outside world until 20 years ago when it was reverted to China and has become a Special Administrative Region of China.
Since then, Macau has known to the world as a casino city because in a short period of about 15 years, it has become a powerhouse in the gambling world, rivalling Las Vegas and substituting it become the world’s No. One casino city with an annual turnover in betting income being 3.15 times that prevailing in Las Vegas. In the year 2018, it amounted to US$37.5 billion.
Macau, despite its tremendous success in the gambling business, its economy is very fragile because it depends solely on a single industry. Other than that, it is supplemented by a travel business and a retail business, both of which are closely related to the gambling and entertainment industry.
As such, our economy depends heavily on the growth of the global economies and world trade, especially in the case of China. Therefore, five years ago, the Macau government was aware of this odd situation and wanted to promote the diversification of our economy by means of focusing on STEM education and encouraging high tech manufacturing industries but in vain.
There have been few participants in this initiative because our entrepreneurs are not scientific minded and short of risk taking courage to enter new high capital investment ventures.
In view of the above, we, at the Macau SME Association, believe we can play a part in promoting entrepreneurship in Macau. We feel Macau should concentrate on the service industry. Thus, we should provide a necessary entrepreneurial ecosystem to promote creative and innovative initiatives.
An entrepreneurial ecosystem places emphasis on education and nurturing (in addition to traditional training and incubation) and networking (in addition to tangible and intangible subsidies).
In education, we hold the view that creativity and adaptability are the cornerstones of entrepreneurship. Hence, we have recently proposed to the government to adopt a HELP education model in high schools and universities in Macau in addition to the STEM model.
HELP stands for ‘history”, “ethics”, “literature”, and “philosophy” which are essential for nurturing creativity and adaptability. Networking has been made easy in this internet world. Networking among entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs is of great importance for them to increase exposure, business opportunities and knowledge exchange.
Locally, the Macau SME Association has played a significant role in networking. Regionally, the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong- Macau Greater Bay Area has provided immense opportunities for Macau entrepreneurs to participate in multi-city organization and businesses and to interact with others in the Area.
Internationally, we are working closely with international and national associations such as ICSB and US Small Business Administration. We hope we can provide a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in Macau that can foster the development of entrepreneurship as a pillar of the Macau economy.
At the moment the SMEs in Macau contribute about 1/4 of the Macau GDP (According to the Report of Industrial Structure of Macao in 2017), while in most of the developed countries, the SMEs’ contribution should be in the region of about 40 to 70%. We look forward to reaching this target in about 5 to 10 years’ time.
Since ICSB is famous in its entrepreneurship training and policy making and it has ample experience in such applications throughout many developed and developing countries. Therefore, we are proud to be affiliated with ICSB and trust we can rely on its help to create an appropriate ecosystem for our entrepreneurs. ICSB should have an important role to play in Macau and mainland China.
For this reason, we are in partnership with ICSB, ACSB and U.S. Small Business Administration to host a SME World Forum in Macau on/between December 11 and 14, 2019. We have invited many outstanding dignitaries as key note speakers to address us on topics around entrepreneurial ecosystem and business opportunities in the Greater Bay Area in southern China.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you are cordially invited to join us on this auspicious occasion and share your experience with us.
Thank you for listening.