On 19th and 20th November 2024, Senior Lecturer Wei Wei Seah led 2nd-year MBA students from FOB on a tour of the Commerce and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) and Pavilion of China-Portuguese-speaking Countries Commercial and Trade Service Platform. This visit has provided our MBA students with a close-up experience of the unique charm of Portuguese-speaking countries and the broad prospects for economic and trade exports in Macao.
Representatives from the IPIM provided detailed insights into the economic and trade cooperation between Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries. The students actively engaged in questioning and had in-depth discussions with the representatives. During the visit, students learned about various goods and services, including fine wines from Portugal, coffee beans from Brazil, gemstones from Angola, and Macao's exported products. The exhibits vividly showcased the diversity and vitality of cooperation between Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries.
Another highlight of the visit was the opportunity for students to join the “Macau Catering Industry Intelligent Upgrading Solution Exhibition” organized by the Economic and Technological Development Bureau (DSEDT) and hosted by the Macao Productivity and Technology Transfer Centre (CPTTM). The showcase focused on the new generation of intelligent catering equipment, bringing technological innovation, cost reduction and efficiency improvement, customer experience optimization and business cooperation opportunities to Macao's catering industry. Experts from the Hong Kong Productivity Council and the Dongguan Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Institute of Cooperation and Development were invited to introduce the R&D and application of intelligent equipment and related technologies to the participants. In the equipment display section, exhibitors from Macao, Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Guangzhou and Dongguan showcased smart solutions that can improve the efficiency of food and beverage production, including automatic dumpling-making machines, automatic noodle cooking machines, smart milk tea machines, automatic cocktail machines, stir-fry machines and coffee robotic arms, etc., to help the industry grasp the business opportunities of digital transformation.
The visits ended with the “Lusophone Polychromes” exhibition series at the Complex of Commerce and Trade Co-operation Platform for China and Portuguese-speaking Countries. The work displayed in this exhibition is purely monochromatic, dispensing with the use of colored pigments, and with preference given instead to the diverse tones available from black and white. The artist returns to the most extreme, almost wild, natural landscapes, as a way of revisiting the stillness of ‘Being’, through shadow and light. It is a painting involving scenic representation: engraved in immobility, but with circulating and recurrent thoughts.
The two-day visits not only enriched the students' professional knowledge but also deepened their understanding of economic and trade cooperation between Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries. Furthermore, it provided valuable insights and inspiration for their future research and career development. Senior Lecturer Wei Wei Seah expressed being impressed by the students' active participation and enthusiasm for learning, and looks forward to more opportunities for exchange and collaboration in the future.