bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Alex Lo

Pardon my ignorance, but I have been puzzled for some time now about the Leung Chun-ying administration’s recent fetish with “re-industrialisation”. That roughly started late last year when it pushed through the legislation to form the Innovation and Technology Bureau.
It has become a choice word of the bureau’s chief, Nicholas Yang Wei-hsiung. The term figures permanently in Leung’s latest policy address, which has a long section on innovation and technology.
But didn’t all our industries move up north in the 1980s and 90s? Up to just a few years ago, we were still celebrating our transition to a hi-tech, services-based economy.
How time has changed!
A kind publisher helpfully sends me a new book called The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Scanning through the table of contents, now I know where Yang gets his ideas in feeding Leung about re-industrialising our economy.
I am not saying they steal from Schwab or even have read him. But what Schwab and the global business elites at his forum are good at is formulating new trendy terms and phrases for their public relations teams to proselytise around the world. Globalisation, anyone? Now we are seeing its heavy downsides. Thanks for that, Davos.
The fourth industrial revolution, writes Schwab, is an extension of the third one – the computer and semiconductor revolution of the 1960s and 70s. It consists of such fields as biotechnology, the internet of things, 3D printing and production, robotics, artificial intelligence, drones (for planes and cars) and such like.
Suddenly it all makes sense. I suppose we have found two Davos Men in Yang and Leung. When Yang was first appointed to his quarter-of-a-million a month job, he said:
“We should seize opportunities under re-industrialisation and ‘the Internet of Things’ to propel smart production, to find out what kind of industries can be developed using Hong Kong as the base.”
And, as Leung said in his policy address: “Re-industrialisation is a potential new area of economic growth for Hong Kong.”
Too bad Yang and Leung weren’t invited to the forum which starts this week. They have learned its new vocabulary. It remains to be seen whether they can fill those words with viable concrete policies beyond empty slogans.


With ‘caring Carrie’ image badly dented, here’s what Hong Kong’s top leader can do to win back hearts

Fulfilled all election promises, CY Leung says in last policy address

Colorectal cancer test launching for Hong Kong’s elderly

Calls for HK$3.5 million angling zone in Tamar Park to be widened

CY Leung policy address 2016

Clear policies needed if Hong Kong is to benefit from the fourth industrial revolution  

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying attends the press conference on his 2016 Policy Address at CGO, Tamar. 13JAN16 SCMP/Sam Tsang

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying at the press conference for his 2016 policy address. Photo: Sam Tsang

News

Hong Kong

Politics

Opinion

‘Re-industrialisation’ needs to be more than just a fashionable slogan 


My Take

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}My Take | Clear policies needed if Hong Kong is to benefit from the fourth industrial revolution

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}‘Re-industrialisation’ needs to be more than just a fashionable slogan

My Take | Clear policies needed if Hong Kong is to benefit from the fourth industrial revolution

‘Re-industrialisation’ needs to be more than just a fashionable slogan