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Builds up Comprehensive and Highly Efficient Image for Attracting Foreign InvestmentIPIM’s “One-stop Service” Assists Investors to Implement Their Investment Projects in Macao
In mid and late 90’s, Macao recorded negative economic growth for four consecutive years. In 2000, the beginning of the establishment of the Macao SAR, IPIM timely launched the “One-stop Service” to follow up investment projects through the “Investment Committee”, composed of leaders from nine government departments, a public notary and designated personnel. Over the past ten years, it has assisted local and overseas investors to implement a lot of investment projects in Macao, and built up a highly effi cient image for Macao to attract foreign investment, facilitating enterprises to invest in Macao.
IPIM’s One-stop Service provides a great deal of support and assistance to investors during the process of getting their project off the ground, from simple enquiries, guidance and orientation on investing procedures, right up to following-up the implementation of the investment projects. Meanwhile, the Investment Committee, composed of nine government departments (IPIM, Lands Public Works and Transport Bureau, Macao Economic Services, Labour Affairs Bureau, Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, Financial Services Bureau, Health Bureau, Macau Government Tourist Offi ce and Fire Services Bureau), allows closer cross-departmental cooperation in assisting and instructing investors for the necessary administrative procedures for implementation and completion of the investment. To cope with this service, IPIM has a private notary to handle the relevant formalities for establishing a company and its registration, to make things easier for investors.
The Investor Service Department of IPIM, responsible for the “One-stop Service”, provides various types of consultation service such as meetings, internet and telephone enquires, offering a simple and swift channel for those intending to invest in Macao. Meanwhile, designated personnel are appointed to handleand follow-up the entire investment project, and assists investors to participate in conventions and exhibitions and business exchanges held in Macao and overseas through IPIM’s diverse services such as economic and trade promotion and activities organised by our MBSC; helping investors to locate co-operation partners by business and project matching; providing free temporary offi ce and exhibition space and business service at MBSC. We strive to make every effort to assist and facilitate investors in all aspects.
According to statistics, “One-stop Service” has followed up and completed icluding several hundred investment projects since its inception, including Sumitomo Bakelite Co., numerous industrial projectsin the Zhuhai-Macao Cross-border Industrial Zone, and investment projects in engineering, food and beverage, professional services, retailing and trade and service industry. The sources of investment were from Mainland China, the EU, Hong Kong, Japan, Macao and Portuguese Speaking Countries, and manyother countries and regions. The completion of numerous investment projects has created more than ten thousand jobs in Macao.
By using the cross-departmental cooperation mechanism, providing highquality and diversified services, IPIM’s “One-stop Service” has built-up a highly efficient image for attracting foreign investment to Macao.
The Flow Chart to Investing in Macao
Branded Enterprises Set-up in Macao with“One-stop Service”
Lei Garden and SIM Café Develop Business in Macao
With the elevation of international Macao’s status, many overseas enterprises have set-up in Macao to further develop and establish their brands. IPIM has tailor-made platforms to help local and non-local investors alike to tackle any possible difficulties. It also assigns personnel to follow up investment cases. In recent years, IPIM has helped many enterprises develop in the local market; among them Hong Kong Lei Garden Restaurant and Portuguese SIM Coffee Factory, two successes of IPIM’s “one-stop service” for non-local investors.
Providing Guidance to Investors
Cantonese cuisine is an important feature of Macao’s delights. One can find different kinds of Cantonese restaurants all over the city where there is a growing demand for higher quality Cantonese restaurants. Hong Kong Lei Garden Restaurant found that there huge market potential in Macao and decided to invest here. It is located in the Grand Canal Shoppes on the 2nd floor of the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel.
“First of all we got information from IPIM, who then helped us to apply for a licence to invest in Macao. IPIM has been a very important partner for us,” Christina Wong, Executive Manager of Lei Garden, told Macao Image about her company’s “early days” in Macao. “IPIM is a very important channel for us to know how to deal with other government departments, they also volunteered to follow our development here. For example, we got information from IPIM and then attended last year’s MIF,” Ms. Wong added.
Star Restaurant Comes to Macao
Lei Garden Restaurant was established in 1973, with the fi rst restaurant opened by Chan Shu Kit in his own property in Sham Shui Po in Hong Kong. Later the Group branched out by opening Western and Japanese style restaurants followed by fast-food eateries and on-line catering services. Branches were opened in Beijing, Guangzhou and Singapore, and eventually Macao in December 2007. It now has more than 70 employees in the city and in recent years has won the Asia Cuisine Award and earned a Michelin Star.
Ms. Wong told Macao Image that she hoped the Lei Garden Restaurant would become topclass, therefore, the company has paid special attention to the restaurant’s furniture, lighting and decoration. The total investment has been more than MOP 20 million. The goal is to create an elegant environment for customers, Ms. Wong stresses that the quality of the food served must be guaranteed, therefore Mr. Chan, the company’s chairman, often visits branches and tests dishes himself; the service qualityhas to be superb in order to keep customers. Currently most customers are Venetian Resort clients and mainland visitors. Local customers account for around 30% with some of them becoming regulars.
Changing in Adversity – Have Full Confidence in Future Development
The global financial crisis and the tightening of the mainland’s Individual Visit Scheme, both occurred less than a year after the Group first opened in the city and will certainly impact the business, although the total number of customers has not declined, the amount they spend has decreased. The company is happy to report that last year’s revenue still reached its expected target. But the global financial crisis hasn’t finished, the new influenza menace appeared, with March and April usually being low periods for the catering industry, the total revenue of the two months was far less than expected. Nevertheless, Ms. Wong is pretty confident about the future of Macao’s catering industry. In the face of the current difficulties, Lei Garden will add new dishes and improve the quality of its food. It has also launched discounted set lunches and dinners in order to keep customers.
SIM Sets Up Modernised Coffee Factory in Macao
Macao has a relatively long coffee culture. Managing Director João Basto of SIM Coffee Factory feels that Macao people have a similar coffee-drinking habit to Europeans because Macao was infl uenced by the coffee culture of Portugal. He also believes that city’s residents know more about the enjoyment of coffee than people in neighbouring cities.
Mr. Basto believes that Macao – compared with Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand – is more suitable to become Asia’s coffee centre. He has attributed this to the fact that Macao has very convenient port and that it is close to the most important coffee consuming countries in Asia. Macao also enjoys CEPA (Mainland and Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement) preferential treatment from the huge China market. Coffee made in Macao is entitled to duty-free treatment for export to the Mainland, all these advantages will help to open up the mainland market.
Coffee culture is new to the Mainland, with more and more mainlanders beginning to enjoy coffee, therefore, the coffee industry has great potential. SIM’s major markets now include Macao, Hong Kong and the Mainland. Exports include roasted coffee beans and blended coffee powder. The sales volume in Macao is five times higher than that of Hong Kong.
Carefully Building Up Software and Hardware Facilities
SIM established its Macao factory in the Zhuhai-Macao Cross-border Industrial Zone in 2005. It took two and a half years to select the location, build the factory and purchase equipment. The total area covers more than 2,100 square metres consisting of: factory, warehouses and offi ces, with the total investment amounting to USD25 million. In the future more resources will be invested in hardware facilities. At the huge factory there are only six staff working in warehouse management, coffee-production, product testing and sales.
The two warehouses can store 500 tonnes of unroasted coffee beans and more than 350 pallets of coffee products. The roasting, blending and packaging of coffee are all done by machine to guarantee the quality and hygiene, 80% of the coffee beans used by SIM are from Brazil, and the annual production capacity of the factory is 9,000 metric tonnes.
O Man Peng, Technical Director of the factory, told Macao Image that IPIM gave his company valuable advice on its investment plan when it came to Macao and helped the company communicate with government agencies during the licence application process. “IPIM provided us with very good assistance in the start-up process of the SIM Macao factory, it also helped us to build up a network, which is very important to SIM.”
The reason for choosing the Zhuhai- Macao Cross-border Industrial Zone is that SIM is determined to become the most modern coffee factory in Asia and that it needed a larger space to build a brand-new factory. The Zhuhai-Macao Cross-border Industrial Zone provided the necessary conditions in which such a factory could be constructed.
Apart from its facilities, the spirit of entrepreneurship is equally important. “We hope that our team members can adopt the ‘SIM’ attitude. In Portuguese, SIM means ‘Yes’. It means that one should be positive at all times with an attitude of “nothing is impossible”. Before joining the coffee production industry, Mr. Basto worked in the catering business for many years, he switched to the coffee business as he wanted to take up the great challenges offered by the industry.
“To us coffee is not only about coffee, there are many other things, such as how to make a cup of coffee. We are happy to see that our staff chose to work in the coffee factory instead of in more prominent industries, they had the courage to try this new industry. This is the most modern coffee factory in Asia and we are very strict with our staff, every one of them has to understand coffee,they should know how to make cappuccino or latte. That’s why we have prepared a series of training courses for our staff, such as ‘coffee culture’, ‘coffee drinking’, ‘expresso technique’ and ‘coffee machines’. These are not only training courses we provide for our staff, but also we pass them on to our customers, in this way we hope that more and more people get to know the culture of coffee.”
IPIM Helps to Plan Future Business Growth
Faced with the global fi nancial crisis, Mr. Basto continues to be optimistic. As food and drink are integral parts of people’s life, he believes that Coffee is consumed on a daily basis by most people; therefore the factory has not been impacted badly by the crisis. Currently it needs to maintain effi ciency and cost control. The focal point for future growth will be “break even”. “We visited Portugal with a delegation organised by IPIM and signed a MOU with a large supermarket chain operator. We are now working on co-operation strategies. In future our coffee products can be sold in the partners 1,000 supermarkets, we shall also continue to fi nd new markets.”
As to propaganda, SIM has hired an international professional company to promote itself around the world. It not only highlights the market advantages of the SIM brand name, but also the advantages of being located in Macao. The factory has reached co-operation agreements with a large supermarket chain operator and some hotels in Macao. The local coffee market is now maturing and provides SIM with a very good environment to test the different coffees in order to gain a foothold in Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai markets.
Investors’ “One-stop Service”
IPIM is the offi cial body responsible for the promotion of trade and investment in Macao. It has been providing a wide range of services and facilities to industrial and commercial enterprises from Macao and elsewhere. To different kinds of investment plans, IPIM provides a “One-stop Service” with designated personnel to follow up and provide “all-through” services such as information search, company set-up and other administrative procedures, in order to ensure support and assistance from various sources with the aim of getting the investment off the ground. In order to make its services more convenient and effi cient, IPIM has a “Private Notary” and an “Investment Committee” consisting of leading offi cials from nine government departments to guarantee close co-operation among the different departments in the investment process. Anyone who needs more information may visit IPIM’s website at www.ipim.gov.mo or email: onestopservice@ipim.gov.mo to directly contact the Investor Service Department of IPIM.
