John Tsang moves the pillars on economic debate
The debate over Hong Kong's economic focus continued yesterday as the man who started it weighed back in on his blog yesterday with a new argument.
This time the creative sector was touted as one of the next great hopes for Hong Kong by Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah.
In his blog last month, he raised eyebrows when he warned against "blindly" pursuing new industries to drive growth, and rejected criticism that Hong Kong had relied too much on its four pillar industries - finance, trading and logistics, tourism and professional services.
In his latest blog, he says Hong Kong needs to reinforce these four established sectors while at the same time nurturing new industries so they can become pillar industries in the future.
He noted several industries were making good progress and singled out the creative industry - which includes the city's advertisers, architects, designers, publishers and artists.
"The creative industry in the city is very competitive. Hong Kong has world-class creative talents, and enjoys a remarkable geographical advantage as well as a sound system to protect intellectual property," he wrote.
"All of these advantages make us capable of becoming the capital of creative industry in the Asia Pacific."
He added that it took a long time to nurture new industries, and so the government would continue to offer support.
Tsang added he was very pleased to discover that events for Hong Kong Design Year 2012, a government initiative, had attracted 2 million people - about three times the turnout for similar events over previous years.
