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Letters | Hong Kong has golden opportunity to be Greater Bay Area’s health tech hub
- The Greater Bay Area has 86 million people who all need health care, a market Hong Kong is uniquely poised to tap given its many advantages
- The city still has some hurdles to clear, though, in particular addressing the long-standing shortage of doctors
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After some discussion, the central government has given approval for Hong Kong to lead the way in health technology development in the Greater Bay Area. This is a big deal.
To grasp how much Hong Kong could benefit from this role, let’s look at the size and potential of the health care industry.
Take the United States as an example. According to US government data, America spent as much as US$3.8 trillion, or US$11,582 per person, on health care in 2019. That accounted for 17.7 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product at that time.
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Bear in mind that this figure was recorded before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the level of global health care expenditure has continued to rise. In other words, Hong Kong has been given a golden opportunity.
There are around 86 million people living in the Greater Bay Area. As everyone needs health care, this is an enormous market.
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More than that, if you talk to scientists, they will tell you how much they fancy having such a large population. It can serve as a base where more accurate test data can be obtained compared to smaller population bases.
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