Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Both my Wife and I feel deeply affected when joining you in Macau. Allow me to begin by expressing my sensibility for the magnificent hospitality with which we have been received by the authorities in Macau, a sign of esteem regarding Portugal and the Portuguese that live here.

To you all, the Portuguese of Macau and Hong Kong, my thanks for your presence.

Strategically situated in the estuary of the Pearl River, Macau has been, throughout centuries, a privileged meeting point between the West and the East. In this place of confluence, a totally unique culture emerged from the harmonious contact between Portuguese and Chinese cultures. Today, with renewed dynamism, Macau honours this historic heritage, construed in peace and friendship.

I had the opportunity to ascertain Macau’s dynamism in the contacts I have made here, at political, entrepreneurial, educational and cultural levels. As you may be aware, as Prime Minister, I intensely lived the negotiation process for the return of Macau to Chinese sovereignty. It was a complex and delicate negotiation process, but exemplary in the results achieved. We can nowadays witness the success of the model reached, evidenced by the extraordinary economic development of this Special Administrative Region and in the preservation of Macau’s cultural specificity by the administrative authorities and by the civil society.

Dear Fellow Citizens,

I know that the reasons that led you to stay in Macau or that brought you here are the most diverse. But I equally know that, independently from each one’s path, all of you have, in addition to the will to conquer, a deep love for our Country, for Portugal.

The Portuguese that live and work abroad are an essential asset that I endeavour to value with as a great a drive as possible. Throughout my mandates as President of the Republic, I have joined whenever possible our Communities residing in foreign parts. I have borne this message of proximity to the Portuguese and Luso-descendants that live and work in the most diverse locations on the planet and with whom I have met – Luxembourg or Stockholm, Sidney or East Timor, San Francisco or Newark, Toronto or Bogotá, Luanda or Johannesburg and many other cities in the world.

In Macau and Hong Kong, the most demanding challenge is to be able to face the future and project our ambitions there whilst Portuguese.

Dear Friends,

Each one of you is a true Portuguese Ambassador, a live witness of what is our Country. I thank you for the visibility that, thanks to your presence, the Portugal of the 21st century has acquired in this Far Eastern territory. Our History is well known out here. Today’s Portugal is a new reality, which the Diaspora has revealed in a large measure: a country that invests in the cluster of the sea, that has available physical and technological infrastructures with exceptional quality, which has been reaching new levels of competitiveness in several scientific and technological fields, which is European leader in the availability and quality of online public services, which has centres of excellence in areas with large growth potential, such as nanotechnology, mobile telecommunications, medical sciences of biotechnology, and whose scientific production is inserted in the most prestigious networks of global knowledge.

Your success here is an example of the internationally recognized excellence of Portuguese human resources. Your success is an essential factor for adding value to our relations with China.

During this visit I had the opportunity to witness, on several occasions, the enormous interest in the Portuguese language. Portuguese is the third European idiom most spoken in the world, the official language of more than 250 million people in four continents, including the Chinese Special Administrative Region. I appeal for you to continue cherishing this language and disseminating our culture.

Dear Fellow Citizens,

At the end of my State Visit, I depart with the confidence that the authorities which I met attribute, just as we do, a clear strategic value to the relations and cooperation with Portugal. The Macau and Hong Kong Portuguese Communities are fundamental agents in this relationship, which in the past few years has become diversified and intensified.

I wish you all the best of professional, personal and family successes. In Portugal we know we are able to count on each one of you.

In the hope that you feel nearer to our and your land, Katia Guerreiro has brought you, through “Fado”, a little bit of Portugal. I hope you enjoy the concert that will be performed in a little while.

Before this, however, I wanted to leave special thanks to a few amongst you that I have decided to decorate, due to the outstanding way in which they have contributed towards the exemplary transition to Chinese sovereignty, keeping alive Macau’s specific cultural inheritance.

Thank you very much