Representatives of provinces and regions “9 + 2″ of the Great Pearl River Delta will visit Brazil and Portugal from 5 to 12 March focused on research and exchange of information on environmental protection and management of marine waters, a spokesman said in Macau on Thursday.

The visit to Brazil and Portugal is part of the strengthening of the role of Macau as a platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries and was organised as a way to implement the various measures announced in October 2016 by Prime Minister Li Keqiang.

The visit also aims to follow the guidelines of the State Council on deepening regional cooperation of the Great Pearl River Delta and the summary of the “Leadership Summit of Cooperation in the Great Pearl River Delta Region.”

The delegation will travel first to Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, where it will visit the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brazil), the Ministries of Environment and Planning, Budget and Management.

Later it will go to Manaus, in northern Brazil, where it will find out about environmental protection projects along the Amazon River and will hold exchange meetings with environmental protection companies in Brazil.

Later the delegation will travel to Lisbon for meetings to assess resources, equipment and more up to date techniques for environmental protection in order to address the feasibility of bilateral cooperation and technology transfer.

The delegation consists of 50 people and is led by the president of the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), Jackson Chang and includes representatives of environmental protection servicesof the “9+2″ and the secretariat of the Great Pearl River Delta, as well as of the Macau government, namely the bureaus of Environmental Protection and Maritime Affairs and Water.

The mission, which follows a similar one in June 2016, includes representatives from Sichuan, Guangdong, Fujian, Yunnan, Hunan, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Hainan, eight of the nine provinces of the Great Pearl River Delta.

The region of the Great Pearl River Delta (9+2) has an area of 2 million square kilometres, 21% of China’s total area, a population of 453 million people and accounts for 40% of China’s economic output.