The Macao SAR Government strongly encourages the youth to work hard in order to fulfil their dreams. Therefore, qualified entrepreneurs can get the government to provide them with funding, offices, information exchange platforms, between many other ways of support.
Young Entrepreneurs Aid Scheme
Beyond conventional career options, the government encourages young people in Macao to fulfill their dreams of starting their own business and thereby foster economic diversification and innovation in Macao, the Government has launched an interest-free business start-up loan programme specially designed for young people. Interest-free financial assistance is provided to those who have already conceived the idea of starting a business and started the relevant operations, to relieve them of the pressure of shortage of funds during the business start-up stage.
The Young Entrepreneurs Aid Scheme was launched in August 2013, with a maximum loan amount of MOP 300,000 and longest repayment period of eight years. The scheme was revised in August 2017, applications were not limited to young entrepreneurs who are creating their own business for the first time, but also young entrepreneurs who have experience in starting up their own business, the scheme also provides training to the young entrepreneurs. The industries involved have mainly been retail, restaurants and hotels, corporate services, and personal services including automobile and motorcycle repair, and hair and beauty salons, as well as wholesale.
Macao Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre
In order to further improve the supportive measures for youth entrepreneurship, the SAR Government established the “Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre” under the Economic Bureau in 2015 in the hope of providing diversified and up-to-date entrepreneurial support to the youth of Macao.
In 2017, the “Macao Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre” moved to the new site at the Zona Nova de Aterros do Porto Exterior, and its operator was changed to Parafuturo de Macau Investment and Development Limited. The new “Macao Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre” operates 24 hours a day, providing a range of support services to its young entrepreneur members including free temporary office, one-stop services for companies, free professional consultancy services (accounting and law), resource docking/business matching services, innovative entrepreneurship training courses, experience exchange meetings, assisting young people to participate in the cooperation and development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and cooperation between Chinese and Portuguese entrepreneurs.
The “Macao Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre” is committed to providing diversified entrepreneurship support services for young people in Macao, incubating potential entrepreneurial projects and assisting young entrepreneurs to start up smoothly for the development of young entrepreneurial enterprises.
SMEs Service Platform
Jointly established by the Macau Youth Entrepreneur Association, Bank of China SME Service Centre and Macao Daily News ‘Economy’, the SMEs Service Platform is a web-based platform focusing on interactions between young entrepreneurs, banks, specialist teams, SMEs and young business entrepreneurs.
Apart from policy information, it emphasises bank financial analysis and diagnosis of specialised enterprise management to improve business models, inspire new business thinking, promote multi-industry and cross-discipline exchanges, help SMEs develop, and enhance management standards on a continued basis. It also makes use of this platform to provide market information, business support and business matching and enables the function of e-commerce. It also hopes to help local SMEs develop and grow via support and assistance.