The Macau Forum is a subsidy programme with a diplomatic title
A 15% corporate tax rate, exemption on overseas investment income, personal income tax relief for imported talent, and cash rewards for technology transfer — all aimed specifically at companies from Portuguese-speaking countries.
The China–Portuguese-Speaking Countries Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum, known as the Macau Forum, is usually described in cultural terms — shared language, historical ties, Macau's particular position. Reading what it actually offers, it looks more like an industrial policy instrument with a specific target list.
Read the appointment
The Forum's secretary-general, Ji Xianzheng, took the role in 2022. His career before it: diplomat in the economic and commercial counsellor's office at the Chinese embassy in Portugal; economic and commercial counsellor in Spain from 2009; the same role in Venezuela from 2014; and from 2019, deputy director-general of the European Department at the Ministry of Commerce, handling bilateral economic and trade affairs with European countries.
That is not a cultural diplomacy background. It is a trade promotion career spanning Iberia, Latin America and the EU desk — precisely the geography the Lusophone network covers.
What is actually on offer
The Forum's stated approach is to use the Guangdong-Macau cooperation zone's policy toolkit to attract technology companies from Portuguese-speaking countries. The instruments are specific.
Tax. A reduced corporate income tax rate of 15% for qualifying enterprises. Exemption from corporate income tax on overseas direct investment income. Immediate expensing for newly acquired fixed and intangible assets below a set unit value threshold. And for qualified talent brought in by these companies, exemption from the portion of personal income tax liability exceeding 15% — meaning an effective personal cap at that rate.
Cash support. Incentives for establishing technology incubators. Rewards for winners of innovation and entrepreneurship competitions. Investment rewards calculated on actual contribution. Subsidies covering employment, office space and research and development expenditure.
Transaction incentives. Rewards for organisations engaged in technology development, transfer, licensing, consultation and services directed at Lusophone countries — and subsidies for the activity around it: entrepreneurial guidance, investment and financing matchmaking, market expansion support.
A 15% corporate rate with a 15% effective personal cap, plus subsidised premises, salaries and R&D, is a competitive package by any standard. That it is available on the basis of which language your country speaks is what makes it unusual.
Why the structure works
The Forum sits at an intersection that no other Chinese institution occupies. It connects the Greater Bay Area's industrial capacity and capital to a network of nine countries spanning Europe, South America, Africa and Asia — Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste — that share legal traditions, commercial language and administrative familiarity.
Macau provides the venue, the bilingual administration and the legal bridge. Hengqin provides the physical zone. The Forum provides the budget and the mandate.
The explicit aim of supporting Macau's own economic diversification adds to the durability: this is not only outward-facing policy but part of reducing Macau's dependence on gaming, which gives it a domestic constituency and a reason to persist.
What this means if you are on the European side
Portuguese companies qualify for a package most European firms cannot access. A Portuguese technology company entering China through this route receives tax treatment and direct subsidy unavailable to a German or French competitor doing the same thing. That asymmetry is deliberate and rarely factored into European China strategies.
The technology transfer incentives run outward as well as inward. Rewards are offered for technology development, transfer and licensing directed at Lusophone countries. For a European firm, that means subsidised routes into Brazilian, Angolan and Mozambican markets using Macau as the base — the network works in both directions, and the outbound direction is less contested.
Corporate structure determines eligibility. Whether a subsidiary counts as being from a Portuguese-speaking country is a question of where it is incorporated and who owns it. Firms with existing Portuguese or Brazilian entities may already qualify without realising it, and those without may find the structure cheap to create relative to what it unlocks.
The cultural framing around the Forum is genuine, and it obscures how concrete the offer is. Judged by its instruments rather than its language, this is a targeted investment promotion programme — and the target happens to include an EU member state.