Opinion | What Hong Kong can learn from Singapore on nurturing a tech ecosystem for IT talent

  • Singapore’s government believes it should spearhead and nurture the tech ecosystem, and thus offers tax breaks, pushes entrepreneurship and promotes reskilling
  • Hong Kong can be a key node in China’s tech ecosystem if it can leverage its financial and international infrastructure and expand its pool of IT talent

A visitor uses a virtual reality headset at the Meta booth on the first day of Fintech Week in Hong Kong on October 31, 2022. Photo: AFP
It’s as if someone has pulled the plug from Hong Kong’s IT talent pool. Even as local demand and average salaries for information technology expertise outpace that of many other sectors, the city is experiencing a brain drain that is expected to worsen.
After the pandemic and an exodus of young people to the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries, recruitment company Venturenix last year projected that an additional 100,000 IT professionals would be required to bridge the market gap within five years. Hong Kong produces only around 1,500 university graduates in software engineering-related fields every year.
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