Macao has been under Portuguese rule for more than four hundred years. Not only are its laws and regulations written in Portuguese, but most of its civil servants are Portuguese, being either from Portugal or locally-born. Al-though the Chinese form an overwhelming majority of its population, Macao has only a samll number of Chinese civil servants and the number of its medium and high-ranking Chinese civil servants is practically negligible. Macao will be handed over to mainland China on December 20, 1999. If all Portuguese civil servants, including those who were born locally, leave Macao's civil service on that day, the Macao government would be paralyzed. Localization of civil servants, therefore, is regarded as an issue of utmost importance during the present transitional period. This article first examines both Macao's progress and difficulties in localizing its civil service and then discusses the serious impacts of this localization on the 1999 turnover.