My Take | Bureaucrats a block to hi-tech future

Bureaucrats and politicians are always asking how to make our city a hi-tech hub. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying thinks his badly conceived tech bureau - a subject I have recently commented on - is crucial in this endeavour.

But if they want to know a big problem they face, they should forget about multimillion-dollar consultancies and take a look at themselves. Hi-tech innovations are by definition disruptive and bureaucrats just don't like that. So you have this absurd situation in broadcasting - surely one of the most important hi-tech industries. Two stations have been granted free-TV licences since 2013 but won't say when they will start to broadcast. The existing ATV is bankrupt, yet is allowed to stay on air. But HKTV, founded by brash telephony pioneer Ricky Wong Wai-kay who had already produced programmes at the time of application, was denied a licence and had to go online.

Many government advisers and wise people have explained the same story to me. Hong Kong's population is ageing and economic growth is decelerating, while service industries have failed to provide quality jobs. To reverse such bad trends, we have to promote financial services and hi-tech industries. But bureaucrats tend to under-regulate the former and over-regulate the latter.

But don't ever say Hong Kong doesn't have pioneering start-ups. Companies have long relied on virtual private networks (VPNs) to secure their computer links. Eight-year-old PureVPN has pioneered inexpensive services for individual users, enabling them to use high encryption as well as access territorially restricted content such as US-only programmes.

Oh, and what did we do with one of our true internet entrepreneurs? We threatened him with jail. Chan Sai-ngan, a University of Science and Technology graduate, pioneered a popular online directory for "one-woman brothels", the only type of prostitution that is legal in Hong Kong. After repeat police raids, he was fined and shut down.

Numerous versions of the site have been taken over by organised crime. Police and women's rights activists have since alleged pimping, blackmailing, human-trafficking and money-laundering. If Chan had been allowed to continue unmolested, the site might still be clean and simple.