By GE Zhenwei
Macau New Neighborhood, a residential complex on Hengqin Island in Zhuhai, will be completed in August, local authorities said Wednesday.
The 190,000-square-meter complex will have about 4,000 apartments for sale, exclusively for Macau residents, and over 200 housing units for qualified professionals. Two-bedroom units account for 80 percent of the properties with the remainder three-bedroom.
The new neighborhood is a little like a part of Macau but outside the special administrative region. Macau New Neighborhood is located in the heart of the Guangdong-Macao cooperation zone along Gang’ao Avenue, only a six-minute drive from the Macau-Hengqin border.
The enclave includes residences, with healthcare, education and social services all originating in Macau, and overseen by Macau authorities.
The neighborhood will have a kindergarten and primary school, a health center and a seniors’ service center, plus over 5,000 square meters of commercial space. Twenty-seven residential towers will be connected by all-weather corridors for pedestrians. Macau, covering only 30 square kilometers, has been struggling with its insufficient land issue for many years. Macau has a population of nearly 700,000.
Hengqin, on the other hand, covers 106 square kilometers and is only a kilometer away from Macau across a narrow strait. The two regions are connected by a bridge. A 1-km plot of land on Hengqin already hosts the University of Macau under the SAR government's jurisdiction.
In 2019, the State Council published the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, in which it outlined the intention to extend some of Macau's infrastructure to Hengqin so that Macau residents living and working in Hengqin could enjoy the same welfare and social services they had in Macau.
More than 7,000 Macau residents now live in Hengqin. Last year Hengqin Hospital saw patients from Macau 6,800 times, up 87 percent.
Presales for Macau New Neighborhood will start this year, with the average price of apartments around 30,000 yuan per square meter, only a third of the average in Macau.
