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Innovation and Technology Bureau chief Nicholas Yang. Photo: Nora Tam

Hong Kong’s reliance on financial services will be broken within 10 years, vows new innovation and technology tsar

Nicholas Yang Wei-hsiung sets target for Hong Kong’s transformation into a knowledge-based economy

Hong Kong’s new innovation and technology tsar is determined to break the city’s reliance on financial services by providing a “sustainable ecosystem” to climb the technology chain.

In an exclusive interview with the Post – the first since he took office last November – Innovation and Technology Bureau chief Nicholas Yang Wei-hsiung set a target for Hong Kong’s transformation into a knowledge-based economy from its financial services mainstay within 10 years.

Yang placed priority on creating high-value-added manufacturing industries through re-industrialisation, and developing regenerative medicine and healthy ageing through the concept of a “smart city”.

“We need to diversify our economy because our service sector is not providing enough quality jobs for young people,” Yang said. “We have economic growth, productivity growth, but the jobs are not good enough. Our young people need diversity of jobs.”

Next Wednesday, Yang will host the city’s first ever Internet Economy Summit, a full-day conference for leading global and mainland internet firms such as Microsoft, Facebook, Xiaomi and Huawei to exchange ideas on industry trends while top officials rub shoulders at the forum.

Xu Lin, deputy director of China’s Cyberspace Administration, Ma Li, president of the China Internet Development Foundation, and Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying are among the VIP speakers.

In what Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah described in his budget speech in February as a “new economic order,” the government rolled out policies to spur re-industrialisation, start-ups, financial technologies and creative industries. A highlight was the HK$8.2 billion earmarked to create robotic manufacturing at Tseung Kwan O industrial estate over six years to 2021-22.

Yang was appointed last November, more than three years after he was tipped to become the new bureau secretary. The bureau was only able to get funding after more than a year of filibustering in the Legislative Council as pan-democrat lawmakers blocked the chief executive’s plans.

The memory still lingers, and politics is a sensitive word to Yang.

When asked about the shortage of talent and lack of jobs for younger people, he was “angry” at “cynics” spreading news of failure and suicide among youngsters.

“I am not talking about politics, only plain vanilla, social-economic benefits. We have no right to take hopes away from young people,” Yang said, raising his voice. “A lot of my thinking does not stem from politics; it stems from my own passion. But the same cynical people try to nail me as they are political animals.”

IT legislator Charles Mok said Hong Kong needed longer-term policies to sustain and develop the industry. For example, bureaucracy should be ironed out and interdepartmental coordination improved if Hong Kong was to have citywide Wi-fi coverage, he said. He added that education policy on cultivating talent should start at secondary school instead of the tertiary stage.

Fujitsu, one of the key technology service providers in Hong Kong, said the government should accelerate technology development to help realise a smart city vision, according to a spokesperson. In the long run, the government should nurture IT talent and promote the development of biometric authentication technologies for e-payment and security, she said.

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