The Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), the Hunan Provincial Department of Commerce and the Changsha Commerce Bureau jointly held an exchange and matchmaking session “Xingcheng-Macao Building a Better Future” in Changsha City, Hunan Province (also known as: Xingcheng, “Star City” in Chinese), attracting over 20 large catering chain enterprises in Hunan Province to attend the event. After the exchange, five catering enterprises submitted their investment proposals on the spot and intended to expand their business to Macao through the Investor’s One-Stop Service provided by IPIM.

This event introduced participants to Macao’s advantages in terms of doing business development, such as its business environment, catering industry’s development, the city’s role as a China-PSC platform and MICE resources. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the 29th Macao International Trade and Investment Fair (MIF) and the 2024 Macao Franchise Expo (2024MFE) to be held in October this year were also announced to the participants at the event.

One-on-one Consultation and Exchange Attracted Potential Investors to Invest in Macao

The representative of a well-known Hunan tea brand that participated in the event said that this event helped deepen their understanding of the development of Macao’s catering sector and the advantages of doing business in Macao, as well as the procedures for setting up a company and applying for licenses. They believe that as a tourism city, Macao has been rated as the "Creative City of Gastronomy", with abundant tourism resources, and are optimistic about the development potential of Macao’s catering market.

Some of the Hunan catering chain brands are very interested in Macao. The representative of a chain brand that has already set up a Changsha-style tofu franchise store in Macao shared on-site their story of successfully opening stores in Macao. Another Hunan catering chain brand also strongly agrees with the development potential of Macao’s catering market, and plans to participate in a catering promotion event in Macao in June and conduct on-site inspections, hoping to leverage the support services provided by IPIM to use Macao as a platform to promote their brand and explore the Portuguese-speaking countries market.

IPIM’s Six Representative Offices in Mainland China Help Macao Enterprises’ Explore Business Opportunities with Local Liaison Services

IPIM has six representative offices in mainland China. And the Fuzhou representative office has helped to contact the associations and enterprises of the catering services to make this event happen. From April 2023 to April 2024, IPIM’s Mainland Representative Offices followed up on a total of 115 investment projects. Among them, 51 projects were implemented in Macao, including big health, high technology, and cultural and tourism projects. In line with the “1+4” development strategy for appropriately diversified economy, IPIM will continue to organise a variety of activities in the future, to deepen the construction of Macao as a China-PSC platform. Giving full play to Macao’s role as a convention and exhibition platform, IPIM will strengthen the economic and trade exchanges between mainland enterprises and those from Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries, assisting enterprises to seize the new opportunities in the regional cooperation and Macao’s industrial development.

IPIM Acting President Sam Lei giving a video speech introducing the opportunities in Macao’s catering industry

Catering business operators in Hunan Province learning about Macao’s business strengths through the exchange session

Guests at the exchange session