AT an exhibition on smart life held in Macao, a spray disinfecting robot with “antennas” caught the eyes of many.

It is one of the several robots that can be booked online for free trial use offered by Star Speed Store, a technology firm founded in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) three years ago focusing on hotel room delivery robots.

Yao Jincheng, founder of the company, told Xinhua that his company had the opportunity to provide “non-contact” robot services, including temperature monitoring, disinfection and delivery, for Macao hotels designated as quarantine venues as well as businesses and government departments.

“We now plan to build a manufacturing base in Hengqin to deliver ‘made in Macao’ robots with Macao branding and intellectual property,” Yao said, adding that the company also hopes to reach “Belt and Road” markets with the help of Macao’s influences in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Portuguese-speaking countries.

In September last year, the Chinese central authorities issued a plan to build the Guangdong-Macao in-depth cooperation zone in Hengqin, Zhuhai, which is adjacent to Macao, making the island an important new growth point for Macao’s economy.

Macao resident Ho Kok Tou founded Pachira, an artificial intelligence firm, in Hengqin at the end of 2019. “Macao enterprises should not just employ local residents or only do business in the Macao SAR,” said Ho, whose company now employs around 200 people from across the country and distributes products on the Chinese mainland as well as in the United States.

Aiming to become a leader in voice technology in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and beyond, Ho said Macao businesses must have core products and originality in order to venture further out into the world.

Boardware Information System Ltd., an information technology solutions company founded in 2010 in Macao, is the largest local internet security integrator in the SAR, providing long-term internet infrastructure construction, information security and cloud services for large-scale enterprises, banks and government agencies.

It has also jointly established the State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City with the University of Macao.

However, Chao Ka Chon, president of Boardware, said his company hit a bottleneck in Macao due to its limit in industrial diversification and market.

Back in 2014, Chao registered a company in Hengqin and started to transfer part of the internet security monitoring business there in 2017. Chao aims the broad markets in the GBA and even abroad.

“We can enter the mainland market via Hengqin,” Chao said. “We can also export the mainland’s top technologies and products overseas via Macao,” he said.

(Xinhua)