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HK/Shenzhen sign off on joint high-tech park
February 9, 2017
HONG KONG – Hong Kong and Shenzhen are to jointly develop a 97-acre site at Lok Ma Chau, on the Hong Kong-China border, into an innovation and technology park focussing on robotics, biopharmaceuticals, smart cities and fintech.
The new site, on vacant wetlands created by adjacent waterworks, is expected to take up to seven years to come fully online, bringing calls from leaders in the technology sector to fast-track the project.
The two cities signed a MoU in January to enable them to expand on existing facilities at Hong Kong’s Science Park and Cyberport, and Shenzhen’s Nanshan high-tech park and National Supercomputing Centre.
Shenzhen is already the global headquarters of Huawei, Tencent, ZTE and OnePlus. It also houses the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), one of the world’s largest genome sequencing centres. Apple announced in October that it would be building a new R&D centre in Shenzhen.
Hong Kong has become one of the world’s largest start-up beds since 2013, when InvestHK launched its StartmeupHK initiative to attract emerging high-tech entrepreneurs.
As of October 2016, 622 companies, including more than 250 start-ups, were operating at Hong Kong Science Park. Last year saw a 24 per cent increase in the number of start-ups in Hong Kong, from 1,558 to 1,926.
Speaking to more than 1,000 entrepreneurs, inventors and financiers at the launch of Hong Kong’s second StartMeUp Festival in January, Greg So, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, said creation of the Hong Kong/Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park will offer the region’s largest technology platform across 1.2 million sq m on the Hong Kong border.
It will be four times the size of Hong Kong Science Park.
Seen as a key base for co-operation between Hong Kong and mainland China in innovation and technology research, the park will also seek to attract research institutions and higher education institutes from Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas.
Hong Kong is to build the park’s basic infrastructure, and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation will establish a new subsidiary to operate the facility. Hong Kong Science Park at Sha Tin, in the New Territories, already houses a mix of Hong Kong, Mainland and overseas companies.
Although within Hong Kong’s boundary, the Lok Ma Chau park will be just three km from Shenzhen city headquarters.
Ownership of the land had been in dispute between the two cities – it was part of Shenzhen until 1997, but was at that time recognised as part of Hong Kong. The dispute has been settled with signing of the MoU.
A world of start-ups
HONG KONG – Australia has the fifth-largest number of start-up companies in Hong Kong, with 4.8% of the total. The U.S. leads with 20.7%, followed by the UK with 13%, mainland China with 11.2% and France with 10.3%.
Other countries represented are Germany (4.7%), Canada (3.2%), Netherlands (3.0%), Singapore (2.8%), India (2.2%), Italy (2.2%), Japan (2.2%), Taiwan (1.8%) and Korea (1.5%). Other countries and territories make up a total of 16.3%.
In terms of sector distribution, ICT accounts for 401 start-ups, e-commerce/supply chain management/logistics technology for 249; professional/consultancy services, 180; design, 158; fin-tech, 138; hardware (IoT, 3-D printing, prototypes, wearables), 128; education and learning, 76; health and medical, 54; social innovation, 35; data analytics, 32; sustainable/green technology, 28; smart cities, 25; gaming, 25; biotechnology, 17; retail technology, 13; robotics, 7; and others, a total of 232.
New sectors coming into the Hong Kong start-up mix in 2016 were social innovation, biotechnology, retail technology and robotics.
Of more than 250 start-ups currently in the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation’s incubation programmes, incubatees and graduates have together registered 907 IPs and obtained a total of some HK$1,650 million in angel funding and venture capital investment.
InvestHK’s second StartmeupHK Festival, held over five days in January, attracted more than 5,000 participants to presentations on current and future trends in sectors ranging from retail innovation and fashion technology to smart cities, fin-tech and health-tech.
Launched in 2013, StartmeupHK is an initiative by InvestHK to promote the Hong Kong start-up ecosystem and to connect entrepreneurs in local and overseas start-up communities.
Its mission is to promote Hong Kong as a startup destination, bring global entrepreneurs to the city, and attract innovative, scalable and high impact ventures to set up in Hong Kong.
