Jake's ViewHong Kong's hi-tech love affair can only end in heartbreak
Bureaucrats calling for more public spending on hi-tech should heed the lessons of Cyberport and Science Park; let's stick to what we do best
Technology is an important foundation for most successful economies, and Hong Kong may want to carve out a niche in the related sectors. But without much of a hi-tech industry, it faces an uphill battle against some of its neighbours.
Most people have forgotten it (and quite rightly so) but we had a nascent hi-tech sector in the early 1980s. Names such as Atlas Industries, Conic Industrial and Elec & Eltek come to mind, all basing themselves out of Hong Kong because they did not see much happening across the border.
I involved myself quite closely with them for a period, hoping to build a niche speciality in coming industrial names on the stock market. Vain hope. It was not just the industrial emergence of Guangdong that killed them off. They did a mighty fine job of it all on their own.
It is simply not true that technology is a foundation for successful economies
An insight into their greatest weakness revealed itself to me one evening when I had arranged to host a dinner for a visiting fund manager from the United States, a refined and intelligent woman, with a representative of Conic Industrial.