A Chinese Communist Party official in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, Hui Jianlin, has said that for 10 years Macao has served Jiangsu as a window on the lusophone world, the China News Service (CNS) reports.

Mr Hui, of the party’s Jiangsu Provincial Standing Committee, said so in Macao last week at a meeting of representatives of Jiangsu, Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries to discuss industry and commerce, according to a report carried by the Chinese state-run news agency last Friday.

Mr Hui remarked that exchanges among the places represented had been growing fast, trade in particular increasing every year, the report says.

Representatives of Jiangsu and Macao signed at the start of the meeting an agreement on mutual engagement covering trade in goods and services, exchanges of visits by senior figures and young people, and cooperation in technological innovation, education, healthcare, Chinese traditional medicine, and the meetings and exhibitions business.

The meeting, the 11th of its kind, was held during the 2021 Portuguese-Speaking Countries Products and Services Exhibition (Macao), CNS says.