Today is a day of hope for Macau, a day of affirmation and pride for Portugal, a day of rejoicing for the People's Republic of China.

Today we are experiencing another event in Macau's four-hundred old years of History, with a sense of honour at what has been achieved in the co-operative, mutually understanding and friendly relationship between Portugal and China that can be found in Macau, "City of the Name of God".

Looking back at our long, shared past, I would recall all the generations that lived and worked in this land, all the people who accepted the charm of this pearl of the Orient, all those who mastered its message and left behind their enduring memories, achievements, dreams and work.

The first Portuguese to reach Macau were navigators on uncharted seas. What they felt was well described by Fernando Pessoa:

"I carry within my heart
As if in a chest filled to bursting,
All the places I have been,
All the harbours I have reached,
All the landscapes I have seen through portholes
Or from mastheads, dreaming.
Yet all of this, so much, still fails to meet my desires."


In the past, as now and in the future, what the Portuguese navigators always desired was understanding, willing co-operation and the creation of something new.

The same poet threw light on the past and present in the following:

"Essentially, we were navigators and discoverers and only as a result of this were we conquerors and colonisers. Before the empire, our approach was already universal".

Ours has always been a universal approach to our experience of meeting the world in its many facets, peoples and cultures and it shall remain so.

We have always been builders of the future, respecting the human aspect, open to difference and we shall remain so.

Today, in Macau, Portugal has achieved its goal.

Today is a day of rejoicing for the People's Republic of China.

Yet it is also an opportunity for all the Portuguese who ever lived here to unite in the memory of that first encounter between Portuguese and Chinese.

There has been no trace of any treaty formalising the responsibilities of each side, yet the proof of over four centuries of history shows undeniably that our relationship has always been unique and special.

When the daring of those navigators from the westernmost tip of Europe brought them to the great Middle Kingdom, they were moved solely by a desire to encounter and understand other people.

Thanks to this desire to understand differences and transform them into co-operation, it was possible to create a unique, unprecedented situation: Macau.

Now the City of the Name of God will bring about the Macau Special Administrative Region. It can, quite rightly, take pride in remaining the centuries-old living monument imbued with the memories of our initial encounter and the prospect of a far-reaching future.

From now on, Macau's people will be responsible for its destiny, with its own political and legal systems ensuring that it can remain unique within the great Chinese nation, preserving its own way of life and basic rights. This is what the Portuguese will leave behind as a cultural testament of their presence here.

Macau has the necessary conditions, infrastructure and organisation to function effectively as a strong hub for co-operation throughout the world, particularly with Europe. It will thus be able to play a useful role in China's modernisation, development and opening to the world.

In wishing the Chief Executive of the Macau Special Administrative Region, Dr. Edmund Ho, and all his colleagues the greatest happiness, I ask that they may be given what I would ask for myself: that they be guided at all times by fortune and virtue for the good and happiness of all those living in Macau.

The duty conferred on me by the President of Portugal has now come to an end and I am completing it in the same spirit of commitment and respect for Macau, that has always been mine and leaving Macau's future prospects open.

Like the Portuguese navigators, I can however say that "all of this, so much, still fails to meet my desires".

For what I desire most, like the first Portuguese who arrived here, is for everything to remain the same in tile face of all change, for this is the true meaning of understanding and co-operation, friendship between people and cultural blending.

I must say farewell to tile people of Macau, the City of the Name of God, people for whom I have great admiration and respect.

I leave with longing in my heart.

And yet I am sure "that I have left behind a part of me, and a longing to be free from longing, a longing for the days when 1 felt longing".

A longing for Macau.

A longing for its future

Forever.