IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The MSAR government presented its five-year plan for the overall development of the e-government project.

Published on the government’s official webpage (www.gov.mo) on the last day of 2015, the plan consists of six parts and details measures to be developed between 2015 and 2019.

The highlights of the plan were several measures that aim to create a unified platform in collaboration with the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) in order to better manage and store data related to human resources, finance and property management. The single platform would allow citizens to more readily obtain information and lodge requests concerning different public service procedures; to submit applications; to clarify the status of pending applications, or to even complete online payments.

The eMacao program, launched in 2006, has so far focused on providing information to the public but will soon become “more interactive,” Simon Chan Kai Man said. One project on the table involves smartphone applications providing services such as SMS-payment.

But the official warned that the eMacao is “a long-term” initiative. “It depends on the population and also on the technology available,” he explained.

The Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) announced on Sunday that the government will introduce facial recognition technology as one of the ways to identify users at its e-services.

The bureau underlined that the facial technology will enable residents to get access to e-government services “more quickly and more conveniently”.

Despite the government’s moves and pledges in recent years, there’s still a lot of room for improvement in expediting the digital development of Macau and transforming the territory into a smart city – from better formulation of a blueprint, infrastructure updates, to cultivation of local talents and stakeholders.

Technology has been fully integrated in our daily life, particularly in the past two years in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. We can settle our transactions with e-wallets now, make online applications at different public entities, check the real-time location of buses across the territory via mobile app, etc. These all have been partially facilitated by the government’s push to transform Macau into a smart city — but observers believe much more should be done to fulfil this “smart” vision.

But today ICT can also play an essential role in promoting sustainable development, said Peter Haddawy, director of the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST), which is based in Macau.

UNU-IIST is a branch of the United Nations University, founded as the academic arm of the UN. The UNU-IIST is based here because Macau “stepped up” some 20 years ago and put up the funding to establish the institute.

Introduction

Under the Administrative Procedure Code (Decree-Law 57/99/M, dated 11 October 1999), administrative acts in Macau must generally be performed in writing. Thus, given the way in which COVID-19 has affected everyday life, Law 2/2020 (dated 30 March 2020), which was recently approved by the General Assembly, could not have come at a more appropriate time.

This article sets out the main features of the new law, which will enter into force on 28 September 2020.

The Housing Bureau is to implement an online service for new real estate agents and brokers to apply for their licenses early next year, the bureau announced yesterday.

According to the head of the Bureau’s license and supervision division, Cheong Sek Lam, the new services are to be part of the policies for building e-government as stated in the city’s five year plan.

The deputy director of the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP), Kou Peng Kuan, said that the government would announce the city’s overall planning for e-government for 2015 to 2019 within the third quarter of this year.

Replying to legislator Chan Meng Kam’s interpellation that urged a timeframe for such planning, Mr. Kou wrote that e-administration planning would be submitted for the government’s internal consultation next month before the announcement of the plan in the third quarter.

Frederico Ma Chi Ngai, president of Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) reveals upcoming smart city projects to Macau News Agency (MNA)

Frederico Ma Chi Ngai, president of the Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) has told Macau News Agency (MNA) that one of the planned projects involves an application for which the public would be able to track the process of government decisions, such as tenders, through an application.

The pandemic made mobile payments commonplace, but the Government was able to understand the trends and intervened decisively

It is true that Macau had been adopting mobile payments for at least three years before the pandemic hit, but everyone in the city knows how it was before and how it is now.

The public University of Macau (UM) and state-owned Nam Kwong Petroleum & Chemicals Co. Ltd. (NKOIL) have signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement, according to a UM statement on Friday.

Through the agreement, both parties hope to promote the commercialisation of research results, cultivate talent, and jointly create a smart city in Macao, said the statement released through the Macao Government Information Bureau (GCS).

Smart cities are the future. Today more than ever, nations around the globe are starting to adopt new developments to enhance their cities’ smart capabilities.

One such nation is Macau, which joined hands with the Chinese technology giant Alibaba group in 2017. The goal was to develop a public-private partnership project that aims to turn the special administrative region into a leading smart city in the Asia Pacific region.

The new generation of ID cards will be purely contactless, and will store personal data and biometric information such as fingerprints on a digital chip embedded in the card. The IDs can be used as conventional IDs, providing sophisticated visual and electronic proof of identity, but will also allow citizens to carry out transactions with the government electronically, saving time and effort.

At Mobile World Congress this year, we spoke with Mr. Hudson Lou, Director of Network and Services Development of Macau CTM, to discuss Macau’s digitalization journey and the potential of 5.5G

Macau occupies a relatively unique position within the global telecoms market, being one of the few cities in the world to have full coverage of both fiber and 5G. Combining this with the city’s high rate of technology adoption, it is easy to see why Macau has quickly become a hotbed of advanced 5G use cases and is well on its way to becoming a truly smart city.