'HK on road to becoming international I&T centre'
Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong says the innovation and technology sector in Hong Kong has made a lot of progress in the past few years with the I&T ecosystem becoming more vibrant than before, adding that the SAR serves as a super value adder to foster global collaboration. He said that the SAR has the advantages to becoming an international I&T centre with its top institutions, experts and scholars, a mature intellectual property rights protection system, a robust rule of law and a good business environment. "In the past few years, the Hong Kong government has invested more than HK$210 billion to enhance technological research infrastructure, subsidise R&D activities, support collaboration among industry, academic and research sectors, as well as put together nurtured technology talents," he told RTHK's Your Home Address programme. He said that the SAR has rolled out a number of policies to attract, retain and nurture talents, including the Technology Talent Admission Scheme, meant for admitting technology talents to conduct R&D work in Hong Kong, the STEM Internship Scheme for university students to gain experience in the field and the New Industrialisation and Technology Training Programme to subsidise training for staff in local companies on advanced technologies. "I put together local and non-local researchers to conduct world-class and impactful scientific research. For this InnoHK research clusters, this is a very successful programme aiming to promote the global research collaboration. So far, we have established 29 InnoHK research centres in Hong Kong Science Park in collaboration with more than 30 top-notch universities and research institutions," he said.  "Under the two clusters, one is life and health technology and the other one is robotics and AI. To further expand this successful programme, we are going to build a third cluster focused on advanced manufacturing, sustainable development, new energy and material as well." He added that the recently launched Research Academic and Industry Sectors One-plus Scheme (RAISe+) has been very successful in supporting hundreds of university research teams to transfer their research outcomes into real applications. Sun also said that authorities would accelerate digital economy development to build Hong Kong into a smart city. "[The Digital Policy Office] will be responsible for formulating policies on digital government, data governance and information technology, promoting the opening up of data and offering more digital services. This office will be in charge of introducing more digital government initiative for convenience and benefit of the public and business sector," he said. "This year, we plan to launch over 100 digital government smart city initiatives including providing the digital payments for all government services." He said the office would also work closely with the Guangdong province to promote cross-boundary public services initiative in both areas. Sun believes that Hong Kong can put together the innovation resources from the GBA and the world to promote development and investment, making the territory the best springboard for overseas markets to venture into the GBA, the mainland and the Asian market.