Hong Kong finds new gear for innovation drive
- Hong Kong’s bid to become a centre for innovation in Asia is picking up speed with companies from the mainland and overseas announcing plans for investment in R&D, advanced manufacturing and other areas
Hong Kong has an ambitious plan to transform into a smart city harnessing hi-tech to improve commerce, services and people’s lives.
To that end, the announcements just keep on coming. Just this week we learned that China’s Westwell, an artificial intelligence logistics firm, plans to set up a research and development (R&D) centre in Hong Kong that ultimately may lead to a line of autonomous cargo trucks serving the airport and ports.
A day later, we find the city’s Uspace Technology aims to produce its first Hong Kong satellite as early as this year, and expects to sell half of its 200 annual units to customers in the Greater Bay Area, with the aim of making the region of nine mainland cities, plus Macau and Hong Kong, greener and smarter.
Another assembler called Aspace is developing satellites for Saudi Arabia, from Hong Kong. The latest pledges follow just weeks after Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s largest manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles, said it would set up its own R&D centre in Hong Kong and recruit 500 staff with the aim of starting operations this year.
Advanced and smart manufacturing have been major policy priorities of Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s administration.
The Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES) set out in his October 2022 policy address, with the aim of creating 10,000 jobs, had already attracted 30 companies from outside Hong Kong a year later.