Support for inno-tech SMEs wins praise
The government’s new innovation and technology policies to nurture small- and medium-sized enterprises will transform the city’s traditional innovation model and drive future development, industry leaders said on Monday.
Taking the stage at the Hong Kong-ASEAN Summit, Wong Kam-fai, associate dean (external affairs) in the Faculty of Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said past policies usually focused on university projects.
They had tended to wait for enterprises to transform research outcomes. But often results failed to meet expectations, Wong explained.
But the new policies, including the Technology Voucher Programme introduced in 2016, which subsidize local SMEs in using technological services and solutions to improve productivity, will boost industry development, added Wong.
According to the Global Competitiveness Index, the Chinese mainland has great advantages in market size; Hong Kong, however, has soft power such as labor market efficiency, financial market development and pillar infrastructure.
Wong said the city could improve its weaknesses in inno-tech development by participating in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development. It could then establish in-depth cooperation with neighboring cities.
Now is the best time to push development of the IT industry in Hong Kong, said Albert Wong Hak-keung, chief executive of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation.
With policy support from the government and society, the Lok Ma Chau Loop Innovation and Technology Park will provide enough places for the city’s inno-tech development, while the Hong Kong Science Park’s occupation rate has reached levels of 90 percent, Albert Wong said.
However, he hopes Hong Kong people will encourage and appreciate their entrepreneurs. There should be a change of culture and more talents should enter the industry.
He also called for establishment of a “green passage” in the Bay Area to share data accumulated on the mainland with Hong Kong companies. This will boost the data industry in Hong Kong and create large opportunities for the city to soar in inno-tech development within the region.
Echoing Albert Wong’s views, data expert and Sequoia Capital China Expert Partner Herbert Chia said the level of data sharing was currently very low in Hong Kong. He ventured that a new mechanism was needed to release more data in a reasonable way.
Chia cited Guiyang in Guizhou province as an example; this city had been turned into a data hub just in two years.
He said Hong Kong should not underestimate itself, but grasp all opportunities provided by the Bay Area development.
China welcomes Arab states to actively participate in jointly building the Belt and Road and looks forward to a greater role for the Arab League in promoting friendship and cooperation, Vice-President Wang Qishan said on Monday.
Wang made the remark in a meeting with SecretaryGeneral of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, who is in Beijing to take part in the eighth ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum.
Wang noted that President Xi Jinping has twice made important speeches to the Arab world, in 2014 and 2016, and they charted the course for development of better relations.
China will use funds collected from tariffs charged on shipments from the United States to reduce the impact of US trade move on Chinese companies and their employees, the Ministry of Commerce announced late on Monday.
The ministry said in a statement that the government will encourage companies to increase imports of goods including automobile, aquatic products and soybeans from other markets.
China’s latest action came after the US government