Secretaries and Principal Officials
Below the Chief Executive, the five secretaries and principal officials run the day-to-day governance of the Macau SAR, overseeing economy and finance, social affairs and culture, transport and public works, administration and justice, and security.
Francis Tam
譚伯源 · Francis Tam Pak YuenMacao's first Secretary for Economy and Finance (20 December 1999 – 19 December 2014) and among the longest-serving holders of a single principal-official portfolio in the post-Handover era. Born in May 1949 in Macao, he was schooled in Macao and Hong Kong (St Francis of Assisi's College), studied business administration in the United Kingdom, and earned a Chinese-law diploma and an MBA from the University of East Asia in Macao. A businessman by background — Vice-Chairman of the Macau Manufacturers Association and a board member of the Macau Chinese Chamber of Commerce — he was named to the SAR Preparatory and Nominating Committees before the Handover and served on the 9th and 10th CPPCC National Committees. His portfolio covered finance, taxation, banking, gaming, labour, and economic development through the 2002 gaming-liberalisation, the 2005 Banco Delta Asia affair, and the boom that pushed Macao's gaming revenue past Las Vegas. He was succeeded by Lionel Leong Vai Tac in 2014 and holds the Grand Lotus / Gold Lotus honour.Read profile → served for many years as Secretary for Economy and Finance (1999–2014); and successively held the post of Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture; served as Secretary for Economy and Finance; and long led the Secretariat for Transport and Public Works. Together with the already-profiled and , they make up the SAR government's teams across different eras.
