Hong Kong “has a long way to go” before it can become a global innovation and technology (I&T) hub in the same vein as America’s Silicon Valley, and the city should encourage the private sector to provide more capital to help develop the industry, a minister has said.
Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong said on Sunday that the government had made a good start in developing the industry, but more work was needed to turn those efforts into productivity and economic growth.
“If we want to be like Silicon Valley, I think we still have a long way to go,” he told a radio show.
“Hong Kong does not have a lot of time for that. The Hong Kong government is facing many fiscal challenges but we need capital to develop the industry, similar to other places around the world.
“Hong Kong is a capitalist society … We should think about how the government can use limited input to leverage more capital from society to invest in an industry that has strategic importance to Hong Kong.”
Sun noted the government had invested more than HK$200 billion (US$25.6 billion) into I&T development in recent years, adding the related expenditure amounted to over 1 per cent of the city’s gross domestic product in 2022.
But the minister said the figure was still far below the about 2.7 per cent spent by mainland China, or the up to around 5 per cent recorded for Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai.
Aside from leveraging market forces, Hong Kong also needed to encourage more companies to invest in research and development, he added.
Sun said such a move could create a “virtuous cycle” where companies had huge demand for technology, and would therefore invest in research and promote the industry’s development.
The tech minister added that the city would only focus on certain I&T fields given there were limits to government resources and the amounts of available land, with technology parks to take charge of various specialities.
Sun said Cyberport in Southern district would focus on digital technology, while the Science and Technology Park at Pak Shek Kok would work on research and development.
He added that the San Tin technopole, a proposed I&T hub close to the city’s border with the mainland, would act as a base for the industry.
Sun also shed light on the city’s role in the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone.
The zone was proposed by Beijing in 2017 and comprises two areas separated by the Shenzhen River, with Hong Kong contributing 87 hectares (214 acres) and its sister city across the border offering 302 hectares.
The minister said the park in Hong Kong was positioned to become a world-class platform for the industry, as well as an internationally competitive industrial transformation base.
The Hong Kong side of the zone would seek to gather international I&T resources and become a new trial base for national policies.
More details on the scheme would be shared by the end of the year, while the first three buildings in the Hong Kong section were set to be finished before 2025, he said.
