MACAU, Oct 13 — Macau’s next leader Sam Hou-fai said today his administration would support small local businesses after winning a one-man race for the city’s top office.

Previously the city’s top judge, Sam, 62, is set to be sworn in when the former Portuguese colony celebrates the 25th anniversary of its handover to China later this year.

Macau is a special administrative region under China’s "one country, two systems” framework.

Like his predecessors, Sam ran uncontested in an election where 400 pro-establishment figures choose a leader for the city’s 687,000 people.

On Sunday, 398 ballots were cast — 394 for Sam, and four blank votes.

"People want a capable and proactive government,” he said in the post-election press conference.

"[They] hope the government can take the initiative to improve the business environment, to support the recovery and development of the local economy, to assist micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in difficulty.”

Known as China’s Las Vegas, Macau is the only Chinese city that allows gambling. The multi-billion-dollar industry remains the city’s economic lifeline and main attraction for visitors, although Chinese leader Xi Jinping has urged Macau to diversify its portfolio.

After China lifted Covid restrictions and reopened its border in early 2023, Macau enjoyed a strong economic recovery with an influx of more than 26 million tourists from mainland China and Hong Kong.

In the first half of 2024, however, the city’s retail revenue slumped by 17.5 percent year-on-year.

"The consumption ideas and habits of mainland tourists have changed, and on every public holiday in Macau, many residents (now) travel north and spend there,” said Sam.

"This has impacted micro, small and medium-sized businesses.”

He promised to support long-term development of local business, and stressed at the same time that "integrating into the national development... is the most important policy for Macau’s future development”.

Hailing from Zhongshan, a mainland Chinese city, Sam is the first leader not born in Macau and the first with a legal background — in contrast to his three predecessors who all came from the business sector.

He graduated from the elite law school of China’s Peking University and received further education in Portugal.

Sam was among the first batch of judges trained in Macau’s Magistrates Training Centre and was appointed the president of Macau’s Court of Final Appeal on the same day the territory was handed back to China on December 20, 1999.

Under his leadership, Macau’s apex court in 2021 outlawed the peaceful candlelight vigil held to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The same year, Sam and his fellow judges ruled in favour of the Macau government’s decision to bar 21 pro-democracy candidates from running for the city’s legislature. — AFP