LONG BEFORE THE Cyberport development appeared on drawing boards, Hong Kong was studying the possibility of creating a 'technology corridor' in the New Territories. The anchor project would transform Southern China's industrial base into something more high-technology. Last month, the Science Park opened, amid much fanfare, after 10 years of study and planning. But away from its 22-hectare Pak Shek Kok campus, near Tai Po, most people took little notice. One reason is widespread scepticism and confusion. The Science Park has been labelled everything from a HK$12-billion 'white elephant' to a muddled attempt at encouraging hi-tech development and a property-oriented project that overlaps hopelessly with the Cyberport development the government has undertaken with Pacific Century CyberWorks in Pokfulam. The people who run the Science Park remain upbeat. The first two office buildings and a car park were opened last month, and a total of 1.2 million square feet will be available by the time Phase One is completed at the end of next year. With the recent commitment from Dutch electronics giant Philips to take up most of one building for research and development (R&D), Phase One is now 70 per cent full. ON Semiconductor, a spinoff of United States-based Motorola, has also taken up a large amount of space for R&D, and about a dozen smaller companies are committed to Phase One space. Bernard Lam Moon-tim, deputy chief executive of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks (HKSTP), which oversees the project, said there had been keen interest shown by prospective tenants. 'I don't see any basis for the white elephant label. It's working at the moment. Companies are coming in. They're business people. If they don't see opportunity, they won't be coming,' he said. HKSTP chairman Victor Lo Chung-wing also defended the project and the government's involvement. 'All our neighbouring competitors are doing things like Science Park. In fact, they're doing a lot more. Look at Taiwan, look at Korea, look at Singapore, look at major cities in China, they're doing much more. So we want to stay competitive.' Hong Kong's neighbours have indeed poured many more billions into their government-funded technology developments. Shanghai, for example, won the right to build a semiconductor manufacturing plant backed by investment firm H&Q Asia Pacific after Hong Kong baulked at granting the project any public subsidies. Despite scepticism from some observers that physical clustering of technology companies is not needed in the age of the Internet, Mr Lam said the government believed the campus atmosphere would give the fledgling technology industry a boost in Hong Kong, just as it did in places like California's Silicon Valley and Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Base Industrial Park. 'We still feel that facilities are needed. Or at least in the start, it will help the industry,' Mr Lam said. On the infrastructure score, Hong Kong's Science Park will be competitive with similar projects in the region. But some say it will be the intangibles that will determine whether the project succeeds. 'They're all just building blocks. Are any of them going to be key to the structure? No,' said Ed Sindt, vice-president at We Software, a start up that was one of the Science Park's first tenants. 'These buildings are just a facade. Unless you can fill it with a brains trust and things like that, it's not going to make a difference.' Science Park administrators insist that there is no overlap with Cyberport, as the latter is aimed at companies developing software and services, while the Science Park has targeted companies doing applied research in areas such as biotechnology, electronics and precision engineering. The hope, Mr Lam said, is to attract companies that are drawn to the large manufacturing base and potential market just over the border on the mainland, and the relatively open and sophisticated economic and legal system in Hong Kong. 'Manufacturing and marketing in China, research and head office in Hong Kong. That is the model that we believe is very much the right model,' he said. When the Cyberport project was announced, many observers publicly expressed their scepticism over whether it could truly foster development in the local hi-tech industries, in addition to criticising the government for departing from its generally non-interventionist economic policy. Anson Chan Fang On-sang, Chief Secretary at the time, told sceptics to wait until the project was completed, for 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. The same could be said of the Science Park. Ever since consultancies and technology advisory bodies began studying the idea in 1992, there has been broad agreement that to stay competitive Hong Kong needed to develop its own technologies. However, naysayers have pointed to Hong Kong's uncanny ability to adapt and use the best of the technology that the world has to offer - and its general lack of achievement in creating new technologies for export. That debate may not be settled for years. Phase One may be two-thirds full, but what remains to be seen is whether the Science Park administrators will be able to fill up the next two phases while maintaining their insistence on renting only to companies planning to do original research. It is also too early to say how revolutionary the research coming from the Park will be, or whether simply placing companies in one sprawling campus will somehow spark innovation. In building the Park, the city has in some ways gone against its longstanding tradition of letting industry develop on its own, without subsidy or direction. But it does have regional precedents. It also has the endorsement of some in the hi-tech world, including Sean Maloney, general manager of Intel's communications equipment unit. Government-supported clusters are sometimes necessary, Mr Maloney said. 'You can leave it to chance and sometimes that works, but having the government play a role is very important. Taiwan hi-tech didn't happen by accident. That was a deliberately, carefully thought through plan by the Taiwan government,' Mr Maloney said. Graphic: tech10gbz