The View | Hard to be optimistic about Hong Kong innovation and technology bureau
The opportunity for Hong Kong to play a role in China’s technological development has long passed
I am trying to be hopeful and optimistic about Hong Kong’s new innovation and technology bureau, but besides appearing more than 20 years too late to make a difference, the opportunity for Hong Kong to play a role in China’s technological development has long passed.
How the bureau’s leader, Nicholas Yang Wei-hsiung, uses its budget of HK$25 million for start-up funding and operating costs of HK$36.5 million to staff the bureau will largely determine its success. Too many academics with no real business experience in commercialising technology and bringing ideas to market will render it ineffective as a public policy maker and seed investor.
Too many of the usual government bureaucrats will kill innovation because they are far too risk averse and not inventive. Just look at how government bureaucrats struggle with implementing legislation for Uber and crowdfunding platforms for the city. And including too many elite local businesspeople from conglomerates and property developers will stifle change.
Mainland Chinese have demonstrated that a keen understanding of their local markets is needed to develop successful e-commerce and internet platforms. Hong Kong investors and companies had their chance in 1998 to play a big role in China’s e-commerce development when Jack Ma Yun shopped for investment around Hong Kong for Alibaba. Hong Kong isn’t an important player in China’s technology industry.
At its best the bureau can show Hong Kong as being more than a cabal of asset speculators
Hong Kong’s public policy for technology is starting to emerge if you read Yang’s recent remarks after he led a 50-strong delegation to the mainland. It sounds like another bland and dismal copy of Hong Kong’s subservient attitude of seeking Beijing’s approval in areas where Hong Kong needs to carve out its own independent role. It is void of any originality and understanding of how to achieve competitive advantage in the global technology industry.
Yang says: “It’s hard for the mainland to find a connection point with Hong Kong when there are technology issues that could benefit the city.” Yang added that many business opportunities for Hong Kong would arise from the central government’s “Internet Plus” strategy and its “Made in China 2025” plan. One example was “cooperation between startups in Hong Kong and the mainland and talent exchanges”.