As Portugal's administration of Macau draws to a close, Portugal can proudly assert that more than four centuries' encounters between East and West have bequeathed a valuable heritage.

A heritage born, both during the good and the bad times, of creativity and dynamism, of an extended spirit of tolerance and feeling for the limitations of each era, it was built by the people of this land. So it is in them that we trust to respond successfully to the challenges of the new times ahead.

It was no easy feat to reach this distant land in the East when contemporary modes of travel made approaches between the two extremes of our continents an adventure where others dared not venture.

Nor was it easy to remain owing to the demands of resourcefulness and adaptability that were necessarily implied by the confrontation between such different powers and civilisations.

All this, however, made history; so much so that the harbour where we sought shelter in the fifteen hundreds and which we soon called City of the Name of God of Macau is, four hundred and fifty years later, a progressive and dynamic society with a high standard of living, founded on demanding personal and community values.

It was to enable Macau to pursue this path and do so in security, within the framework of the new political realities of Portugal and China, that the Luso-Chinese Joint Declaration established the special statute of autonomy based on the rule of law, under which the territory will enter the new millennium.

Whilst such a statute is a guarantee sealed by the word of two sovereign States, and solemnly asserted before the international community, it is also a powerful challenge for Macau and its people.

Their reply pays tribute to the sons of this land and is a cause of pride for Portugal.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A life of centuries has turned Macau into a unique reality - in the structure and exercise of its powers, its respect for the inalienable rights of peoples and communities, the dialogue between cultures, the discipline of free trade of goods and services, the permanent openness to the outside world, as a place of arrival and departure between two worlds that were constantly meeting here and so became acquainted.

To maintain this uniqueness forged by history once the administration and sovereignty on which it was structured have been replaced required careful institutional re-organisation, which was successfully achieved during the transition period, initiated on 13 April 1987.

The work accomplished during that period was hard: extending and consolidating the political and administrative autonomy of the territory and of its judicial system; localising the Administration; publishing, in Portuguese and Chinese, the codes governing the legal life of the community in an entirely new carefully reworked version which, as it should, took into consideration the circumstances of time and place; establishing a system of infrastructures decisive for the territory's economic development and to guarantee its future; diversifying and strengthening Macau's external relations both in the region, with the European Union, and with the United States of America.

With all this we sought to ensure the physical and institutional conditions to preserve Macau's way of life after the handover.

Let it be said, however, that although the Portuguese administration comes to an end, Portugal itself will not leave. It will remain under different conditions, accompanying Macau on its route under the powers of a new sovereignty.

In the first place, by means of the Portuguese community born here throughout the centuries and so attached to this land; its members were able at the crossroads of civilisations to incorporate the humanist spirit and keep it alive. With it they are ready to help Macau respond to the challenges of modernity.

In the second place, through the Portuguese language which, as one of the official languages, will continue by the will of all to be an instrument of culture and communication in public and private life.

The law we leave behind is based on Portuguese law and is important in so much as it reveals more imperatively the concepts of community life and how to achieve them, so constituting the best guarantee that Macau's identity, expressed in such exemplary fashion in its way of life, will be preserved and expanded.

The handover changes the sovereignty of places but does not destroy their history. A history equally shared by Portugal and Macau.

It is in the name of that history and what remains of it that the Portuguese consular and cultural institutions that have been designed with appropriate dimension and dignity, will accompany the new times to come and there perform with scrupulous respect for its own sphere.

That is why the future Portuguese Consulate General will without a doubt be the home of all the Portuguese in Macau. Not only that, it will also be the active symbol of Portugal's constant willingness to cooperate with the new powers and the people of this land to preserve Macau's identity and its way of life, as well as signifying its commitment to contribute to the territory's development and its external projection.

Let us hope that this is the desire of all concerned.

Thus Portugal, although departing, will remain; without the attributes of sovereignty, it is true, but with the responsibility underwritten in history to maintain with Macau a meeting place of peoples and cultures which has made such a unique paradigm of this land.

Within the framework of the Special Administrative Region Macau will be governed by the people of Macau; respecting its history, of course, but above all in the conviction that it is within the rights, liberties and guarantees of its inhabitants that it will find the strongest pillar of its own identity, that unique way of life which makes this land different to all others.

I hope that Macau will always understand that this difference is the only way that it will forever secure its own reason for being.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A cycle in the history of Portugal is drawing to a dose.

We travelled the seven seas and experienced success and misadventure, as do all those who dare. To reach the unknown world "how many sons have kept vigil in vain, and mothers wept' Lived as old maids how many brides-to-be" in the inimitable words of Pessoa.

It is fitting that it is in Macau, where the universalist meaning of the Discoveries is so properly fulfilled, that we can say the words that soothe the spirit and lend meaning to the long voyage we undertook for five centuries and which ends here - it was worth while