Pansy Ho Chiu-king Photo: Chen Qingqing/GT

The astonishing achievement Macao has made over the past two decades was shaping a consensus inside the society that it has no hesitation when fulfilling its mission as part of the nation's development plan, and the society is united in achieving this goal, Pansy Ho Chiu-king, a predominant businesswoman in Macao, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Ho, the daughter of gambling mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun, said every time the central government grants Macao some new policies or new orientation, the small city could grab opportunities in progressively integrating into the broader national development plan. While Hong Kong has a more complicated social mechanism, despite its advantages, it is hard to shape such a joint force for development. 

As a much smaller economy compared with Hong Kong, people in these two places have different mindsets. Different from Hong Kong, which is a major global financial hub, Macao has been heavily dependent on gambling for years, and there has been a gap in professionalism in government and other industries, Ho said. 

"But people have been striving for a better development of Macao. And the progress is astonishing," she said. 

With only around 30 square kilometers of land and a population of 670,000, Macao's gross domestic product (GDP) surged to 444.7 billion patacas ($55 billion) in 2018 from 51.9 billion patacas in 1999, with the unemployment rate dropping to 1.8 percent. It is also expected to surpass oil-rich Qatar with the highest per capita GDP on a purchasing power parity basis by 2020. 

"Macao has been improving its economic system. Instead of being internally oriented, it's now time for us to diversify our economy to develop more new industries while fully embracing regional development," she said. 

Frequently traveling between Hong Kong and Macao, Ho sees major differences between these two cities, which both practice the "one country two systems" principle. 

However, replacing one for another is an immature idea, as Hong Kong's market has been developing for a long time with a huge market scale. Macao, at the very earlier stage of financial market development, would target specialized services by providing opportunities to emerging markets and countries.   

During his three-day visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Macao on the 20th anniversary of the city's return to China, more favorable policies in the financial sector are expected, sparking questions about whether Macao would carry out part of Hong Kong's functions, as the financial hub has been struggling with anti-government protests for several months. 

"It's very different. It's more business driven in Hong Kong. In Macao, we need to shoulder responsibilities when it comes to how to use this platform in serving the national development plan," Ho said.