The government of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) has submitted its plan of reclaiming some 500 hectares of land from the island city's nearby waters to the central government, according to a press statement released on Friday by the SAR government.

The SAR government has all along adopted a "prudent" attitude toward land reclamation, and the reclamation plans submitted to the central government was slightly revised from the original plan proposed in 2006, said the SAR's Office for Development of Infrastructure in the statement.

Macao proposed to reclaim 398 hectares of land in 2006, which was later revised based on the opinions from the central government. The revised plan expands the area of reclamation land to 500 hectares, but the reclamation sites are not changed, locating in the eastern and southern part of Macao Peninsula and the northern part of the city's Taipa Island.

The Office said in the statement that the five proposed reclaimed areas will be used for the construction of residential, commercial and governmental buildings, of which the one located in the eastern part of the Macao Peninsula was designed to accommodate around 80,000 people.

(Xinhua News Agency March 14, 2009)