I&T sector making significant progress: FS
Financial Secretary Paul Chan said on Sunday that the city’s innovation and technology (I&T) industry has made significant progress over the past year, and the government plans to further boost support for it. In his weekly blog, Chan said the Science Park has seen a 30 percent increase in the number of companies over the past year, bringing the total to 320, while the cumulative funding of some 1,900 startups in Cyberport exceeded HK$35.7 billion. Chan said to further accelerate the growth of the I&T ecosystem, the government is striving to attract enterprises with cutting-edge research and technological capabilities to come to Hong Kong. “If some leading companies in the industry can settle down [in the city], they will drive the convergence of upstream and downstream industries in Hong Kong, achieving a cluster effect. This move will also attract related high-end talent to come to Hong Kong,” he wrote. The finance chief listed an array of factors that enterprises would consider in deciding whether to set up business in the SAR, including government policies and financial support, land allocation and pricing arrangements, tax and local talent.  "We will consider the overall benefits that these enterprises can bring to Hong Kong and discuss with them the most suitable conditions and plans," he added. Chan noted that the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises has met more than 150 enterprises in the past six months or so, some of which had already submitted their growth plans. The nation’s "14th Five-Year Plan" has tasked the SAR with building itself into an international I&T center, Chan said, to help the country to achieve high-level technological self-reliance.