and 44% of its employment). Prof. Tang remarked that if Hong Kong’s economy over-heavily relies on nance, it would not serve well for its resilience and adaptiveness. Prof. Tang remarked that Hong Kong is losing its competitiveness because, the previous 50% added value in its re-export has reduced to only 20% nowadays, as “Made in Hong Kong” is not as attractive as 20 years ago. In terms of the macroeconomy, Hong Kong is facing the challenge of having the middle class hollowed out, with its declining employment share and wage growth, creating an M-shaped society like Japan 15 years ago. In addition, Hong Kong is facing the challenge of an ageing population, economic headwinds, limited cross-border mobility, and insuf cient commercialisation of scienti c research. Therefore, Hong Kong requires a third economic transformation. The third economic transformation, according to Prof. Tang, needs to be more diversi ed, more industrialised, and innovative for Hong Kong to play a new role in a new era. Prof. Wu approached the question by focusing on the role of I&T Hub, one of the “eight centres” under the national 14th 5-year plan, and comparing it against Hong Kong’s past efforts in promoting I&T, such as building the science park, Cyberport, HK-Shenzhen I&T park, and the establishment of research institutes (ASTRI, HKRITA, NAMI, LSCM, InnoHK), ITF and IT Bureau. He reiterated the criticisms, challenges, and evaluation of these past efforts. Prof. Wu pointed out that although there are quite a few unicorn start-ups in Hong Kong, the I&T industry contributes only a small percentage of the total GDP in Hong Kong, compared with 34.6% in Shenzhen. By comparing Hong Kong against Singapore, the latter accounts for 59% of Asian Regional Headquarters, while Hong Kong has only 18%. Singapore’s R&D personnel is 2-3 times more than that of Hong Kong, with the number of granted patents 2 orders of magnitude higher than that in Hong Kong, the same for the revenue of technology transfer and licensing activities. Although world rankings of universities in Hong Kong are high and the gross domestic expenditure on R&D outperforms most of the other Asian peers, the university-industry collaboration remains limited, and university policies failed to encourage the commercialisation of scienti c research. Prof. Wu voiced that the Hong Kong government should be more proactive in encouraging more investors in the private sector to facilitate knowledge transfer. Prof. Wu also pinpointed four main barriers to Hong Kong’s integration into the GBA, namely, asymmetry in the distribution of bene ts, differences in institutional cultures in bureaucracy, legal and regulatory discrepancies, and social integration challenges. These barriers need to be removed for the new efforts to really make changes. PUBLIC POLICY DIALOGUE SERIES 20
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk5Njg=