Tech park at border can help HK become a hub for innovation
As part of Hong Kong’s ambition of becoming Asia’s centre for innovation and technology development, the city is building a specialised office park at the mainland border in partnership with neighbouring Shenzhen to attract investment and create new jobs. While it is still early days, the plan got off to an encouraging start last week. Already, 60 enterprises have partnered with the Hong KongShenzhen Innovation and Technology (I&T) Park, 24 of them aiming to set up shop or expand operations. They will invest billions of dollars and create thousands of jobs. The mix of companies is encouraging. Enterprises from nine economies were on hand to sign the partnership deal, including the mainland and Hong Kong, but also the United States, Britain, Australia, France, Singapore, Thailand and Japan. Companies include Alibaba’s Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, China Mobile, China Unicom, Lenovo Group, Hutchmed (Hong Kong) and Tencent Cloud International. A quarter are from overseas, including US firms Drug Farm and ASC Therapeutics, Britain’s AstraZeneca and Novotech (Australia).
“This diverse portfolio highlights Hong Kong’s unique advantage as an international city,” Innovation, Technology and Industry Secretary Sun Dong said.
Nearly half the enterprises are from the life and health technology, new energy and microelectronics sectors. Some tenants would set up shop in two wet laboratory buildings for physical testing and advanced R&D centres. Others would support innovation and technology development. One tenant aims to start a biotech testing centre in hopes of achieving medical breakthroughs. A maker of cancer drugs and targeted therapies also plans an R&D centre. A third is building an integrated cancer diagnostic and treatment centre for one-stop service involving R&D, production and treatment.
The Lok Ma Chau Loop park’s strategic location at the border will help provide ready access to the Greater Bay Area, a grouping of nine mainland cities, Macau and Hong Kong, supporting cross-border exchanges of talent and people. Hong Kong, with low taxes and access to international capital markets, is uniquely placed to facilitate access between the mainland and overseas markets.
Naturally, success will not be achieved overnight. Research and development takes time, and ultimately success of the park will be measured in part by how much progress is eventually made.
Slowly but surely the city is moving in the right direction. What remains to be seen is how smoothly things progress once businesses are operating and things are up and running. If all goes according to plan, the focus on research and development will help the city on its way to becoming Asia’s innovation and hi-tech hub.