SAR primed for new productive forces: Beijing official
A top Beijing official in Hong Kong on Monday said the SAR is the most suitable place to develop new quality productive forces.  At a summit, Zheng Yanxiong, the director of Beijing's liaison office, said talent is key, as he hailed Hong Kong's top-notch research and development teams, as well as its convenient global connections. "Hong Kong is an international financial centre. Finance and innovation and technology are intertwined, and Hong Kong has incubated more than 4,200 start-ups. It is a petrol station for the development of new quality productive forces," Zheng said.  "Hong Kong has unique and unparalleled conditions to develop new quality productive forces." Zheng also brought up "tourism is everywhere", a concept suggested by Xia Baolong, the head of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. "The trade should think about how to make good use of the beautiful 1,180 kilometres of coastline and 263 islands, how to support Hong Kong's tourism with animation, performing arts, e-sports, healthcare, artificial intelligence and coastal sports, and how to provide a top destination for leisure and vacation for the more than 500 million middle- and high-class people on the mainland," Zheng said.  Chief Executive John Lee, at the same event, vowed to speed up the development of new quality productive forces and said overseas talent will be a focus for the administration.  "The government is fully committed to providing broader space for entrepreneurship and employment for talents in innovation and technology, encouraging industry and academia to work together to cultivate them, and to offer them richer practical opportunities," Lee said.  "At the same time, we continue to improve our talent schemes to attract more global talent and to become a place for high-end international talent to gather." In a newspaper interview, Lee said those who came to Hong Kong via various talent schemes generally earn more than the median monthly income.