500 Escudos Return of Macau to China, Bimetallic foil silver and gold

Portugal's handover of Macau to the People's Republic of China on 20 December 1999 closed 442 years of Portuguese administration — the longest-running European colonial presence in Asia. Banco de Portugal issued this piece as part of a broader commemorative program marking the transfer, which came nearly two and a half years after the British handover of Hong Kong in 1997. The "foil" bimetallic construction — silver centre set in a gold alloy ring — was a technically demanding format that the Portuguese mint had refined through earlier commemorative programs in the 1990s.