"Sometimes, there is room to fine-tune the fund's regulations, it is not necessarily a matter of taking such a quantum leap to create other funds to meet expectations", Pedro Reis told Lusa, who is in Macau for the sixth ministerial conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries (PLP), better known as the Macau Forum.

The cooperation fund, worth one billion dollars (938 million euros), was created 10 years ago by the Development Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Development Fund of Macau.

This mechanism has already invested 500 million dollars (469 million euros) in Portuguese-speaking countries, announced in October Shi Wenju, president of the management entity, the China-Africa Development Fund.

The rules for accessing capital have been criticized by member countries of the multilateral structure, as was the case of the Mozambican ambassador to Beijing, Maria Gustava, who last year called for "flexibility in accessing existing funds", pointing to the need for changes.

Companies interested in obtaining support must guarantee a minimum investment of five million dollars (4.7 million euros) and the Sino-Lusophone fund only finances 20%, explained to Lusa, in May 2022, the president of the International Commercial Association for the Lusophone Markets, Eduardo Ambrósio.

Regarding the investment of half of the fund in a total of ten projects in the space of ten years, Pedro Reis noted that "it is not as insignificant as" has been heard.

"I think it's a start. We would expect an acceleration now, also because, even in this matter of funds, sometimes the first years are less projects, and then it gains a natural traction. Often, in funds, the second phase has much more capacity to invest", he said.

Defending that the projects "have to have time to breathe", Pedro Reis considers it "more important to consolidate, densify, revisit" this fund "than to create other funds".

"The important thing would be to bring this fund to a more impactful and SME logic", he said.

Initially scheduled for 2019, the sixth ministerial conference was postponed to June 2020, due to the elections for the Macau parliament, but with the covid-19 pandemic it ended up not taking place.

In an assessment of more than two decades of the Macau Forum, created in 2003, the Minister of Economy considered that "having this space for dialogue with China" is a "benefit for all member countries".

"For China because it seems to me that it allows it greater visibility and proximity to the reality of investment projects, to the moments of export, to the cultural agenda, to the importance of the linguistic aspect. And for our countries, and namely speaking obviously for Portugal, it ends up being a revisit and a balance and a revitalization of this global agenda", declared Pedro Reis.

The Macau Forum includes, in addition to China, nine Portuguese-speaking countries: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste.

Five ministerial conferences were held in the territory in 2003, 2006, 2010, 2013 and 2016, during which Action Plans for Economic and Trade Cooperation were approved.

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