​Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) and Beijing government authorities cohosted a series of thematic seminars during the Beijing Hong Kong Economic Cooperation Symposium and the Hong Kong Investment Promotion Conference (the Symposium) in Beijing on September 21 to provide an update on Hong Kong's new business opportunities, especially in supply chain internationalisation and co-operation in innovation and technology. The objective is to encourage Beijing enterprises to make use of Hong Kong's business advantages and opportunities to accelerate their overseas expansion.
This year's Symposium aimed to promote complementarity to achieve shared prosperity. It featured 15 thematic promotion events and other activities, focusing on Hong Kong's unique advantages, business environment, and measures to facilitate co-operation between enterprises in Beijing and Hong Kong.
On the morning of September 21, InvestHK jointly organised the first special promotion activities on regional strategic connection with the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, the Beijing Federation of Industry and Commerce, and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, entitled Leverage Complementarity Advantages and Jointly Promote the International Development of Industrial and Supply Chains in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Region. The Director-General of Investment Promotion, Ms Alpha Lau, said, "More and more Mainland manufacturers are leveraging both domestic and overseas production capabilities to form multinational supply chains, which has greatly increased the demand for professional services. Hong Kong as an international financial, trading, shipping and aviation centre, provides them with comprehensive and high-quality professional services to meet their business needs in Asia and overseas. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government is actively developing the city into a multinational supply chain management centre to seize the opportunities from the overseas expansion of industrial supply chains on the Mainland. Together with Hong Kong's various business advantages, the city can help Mainland enterprises to 'go global' with high quality."
By way of the historical opportunities brought by the country's 14th Five-Year Plan, the HKSAR Government has been moving at full steam to develop emerging industries such as innovation and technology in recent years, and is actively developing Hong Kong into an international innovation and technology centre. On the same day, InvestHK promoted Hong Kong's new opportunities in technological innovation to entrepreneurs in Beijing at the two thematic events.
The first technological innovation thematic event was jointly organised with the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, and was entitled Forum on Creating the Future Technology Innovation Cooperation in Beijing and Hong Kong through 'Intelligence' and the 7th 'Beijing – Hong Kong Youth Innovation Cup' Final". Ms Lau said, "The HKSAR Government is accelerating the development of building the city into an innovation and technology hub. Together with Hong Kong's unique business advantages, the city is an ideal platform for Mainland enterprises to enhance their new quality productive forces and international competitiveness, as well as being an ideal base for start-ups to set up. According to InvestHK's survey, Hong Kong has more than 4 200 start-ups with both the number of start-ups and their number of staff employed reaching a new record high and demonstrating a vibrant start-up ecosystem." Ms Lau encouraged more innovative enterprises in Beijing to consider using Hong Kong as the platform to expand overseas. She was also invited to join the unveiling and project-signing ceremony of the Beijing-Hong Kong science and technology innovation co-operation during the event.
The second technological innovation thematic event was entitled Empowering AI, Investing in Haidian Smartly and was a Haidian District special promotion event. It was co-organised by InvestHK and the People's Government of Haidian District of Beijing Municipality. Ms Lau said, "Hong Kong has world-class universities and cutting-edge research institutions, bringing together overseas and domestic higher-education resources and scientific research talent. The HKSAR Government is actively developing innovation and technology from various aspects and is promoting the development of an artificial intelligence technology ecosystem. With the establishment of the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises, it aims to attract and assist high-potential and representative strategic enterprises from around the world to set up in the city. Together with a series of new policy initiatives to attract talent, we believe that it can bring more momentum to Hong Kong's future development and further enhance the city's competitiveness in artificial intelligence."
The Senior Vice President from the Startups team of InvestHK, Mr Lu Chin Yung, also introduced Hong Kong's business environment and the latest start-up ecosystem in the two technological innovation thematic events.
For photos of the conference, please visit www.flickr.com/photos/investhk/albums/72177720320537188.
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