Motion on “Seizing the opportunities of accelerating the development of new quality productive forces in the country”
President, first of all, I am grateful to Mr CHAN Hak-kan for proposing this motion. Thanks to its unique geographical advantages, a highly internationalized economic system and well-established rule-of-law environment, Hong Kong has a certain standing in the global economic development. However, faced with a situation where the external risks are gradually increasing, it is necessary for Hong Kong to enhance its strengths through the development of new quality productive forces. Finance as well as innovation and technology (“I&T”) are two main engines driving high-quality development in Hong Kong. Hong Kong must give full play to its financial advantages, provide innovative enterprises with a wide range of financing channels and capital support, and upgrade the financial market both in depth and in breadth, so as to bring into play the core role of our international financial centre in supporting the real economy.
Technology innovation is the key to promoting the transformation of traditional productive forces into new quality productive forces. In other words, new technologies are adopted for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, so as to actively facilitate the high-end, smart and green development of industries. Hong Kong has a certain foundation and strength in technology innovation. The Government is committed to establishing the development pattern of “South-North dual engine (finance-I&T)”, the implementation of which will not only enhance Hong Kong’s research and development (“R&D”) capability in science and technology but also attract more technological enterprises and talents.
Nowadays, digitalization has become a new driving force for economic development. As a new key production factor, data empowers enterprises to enhance their efficiency and competitiveness. The Financial Secretary proposed in this year’s Budget to build a data trading ecosystem. In fact, a highly efficient data ecosystem has become one of the considerations for many enterprises to establish a foothold in Hong Kong. Building a mechanism that facilitates data trading as soon as possible can create a favourable data trading ecosystem and platform for Hong Kong and facilitate the development of data into a new industry with an enormous growth momentum.
Secondly, the Government should make use of technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence (“AI”) to enhance the efficiency and security of financial services, attract more enterprises and investment, and promote the development of Hong Kong’s AI ecosystem on all fronts. Cyberport is now building an AI Supercomputing Centre at full speed, and it can provide powerful computing power to support technology innovation. I hope that this project can be completed more quickly.
Green is the “base colour” for the high-quality development of new quality productive forces. With the emergence of the concepts of green finance and ESG (environmental, social and governance), the Government is endeavoured to speed up work in areas such as the promotion of green fintech and climate-related disclosure standards, and provide capital support for the development of green industries, enabling financial services to better facilitate the development of green technology. It is necessary to continuously take forward work in this respect.
To develop new quality financial services, Hong Kong must put the trawl for talents on the strategic high ground. It must step up the nurturing of new talents and expand the pool of financial talents, especially talents in science and technology innovation in view of a relatively acute shortage of these talents at present. The Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Development Blueprint expects that the number of personnel engaged in the I&T industry will reach 100 000 by 2032. But last year’s estimate showed that there are only about 65 000 practitioners in the industry now, which is quite a big gap. The Government should think about how we can more vigorously attract, compete for, and nurture talents, taking a multi-pronged approach to stock up quality innovative talents for Hong Kong.
Through measures such as increasing investment in R&D, nurturing innovative talents and strengthening technological cooperation with the Mainland at the same time, Hong Kong can enhance its competitiveness in the areas of new quality productive forces and integrate with the national development strategy. Considering that the development of new quality productive forces involves a huge demand for capital, the Government and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority can roll out appropriate measures and policies to encourage borrowings and financing in support of technology innovation, guiding the banking system to actively complement the development of the relevant industries.
As an important window for the country’s development of new quality productive forces, Hong Kong has various conditions for promoting the development of new industries, new modes and new growth drivers in areas such as finance, trade, professional services, transport and logistics. However, in terms of complementing the overall development of the country and developing new quality productive forces, we need to examine our own strengths and adopt suitable measures according to the actual conditions, focusing on the goals and making an effort to achieve them. Then we should ensure complementarity between Hong Kong’s advantages and the industrial strengths of the cities in the Greater Bay Area, and boost productivity through technological innovation. I believe that by harnessing the benefits of synergy, we can not only achieve high-quality development but also contribute to the overall strategic goals of the country.
With these remarks, President, I support the original motion and all the amendments. Thank you.