At the Leading Edge of Technology

Collaborating with Hong Kong Government on the one hand, and business, industry, academia and the community at large on the other, Hong Kong is developing to be a leading digital city in the coming century. The HKSAR government is fully committed to encouraging the development of IT to maintain Hong Kong's competitive edge and to drive our overall economic growth. "Digital 21" IT strategy was announced in 1998 which sets out the vision and targets to enhance and to promote Hong Kong's information infrastructure and services, and department and bureau were set up to pursue the full range of initiatives in earnest.

The Cyberport

One of the major projects in the "Digital 21" Strategy is the Cyberport project. The Cyberport is an information infrastructure project which aims at creating a strategic cluster of leading information technology and information services companies and a critical mass of professional talents in Hong Kong in a shortest possible time. The companies in the Cyberport will specialize in the application of advanced information technology to the development of services and multimedia content. It will consolidate Hong Kong's position as an information and technology hub, and will also create an international multimedia and information services centre. Infrastructural works already commenced in September 1999 to meet the target completion of the first phase of the Cyberport development by late 2001/early 2002. Up to now, 14 leading IT and IS companies have signed letters of intent to become anchor tenants: Cisco Systems, CMGI, Hewlett-Packard, Hua Wei, IBM, Legend, Microsoft, Oracle, Pacific Convergence Corporation (a joint venture between the Pacific Century Group and Intel), Portal, Silicon Graphics, Softbank, Sybase and Yahoo!. Another 60 companies have registered interest to become tenants.

At the Forefront of Research

Besides the research departments of the eight local universities, the Science Park is going to be the most prominent research centre of Hong Kong. The Science Park project is one of the major commitments made by the Hong Kong government to move Hong Kong's economy up the technology and value added ladder. It will strengthen the links between the higher education, research, industrial and business communities and help develop networks between them. And this project will help make the investment in higher education and research more immediately productive, and helps the commercialisation of research results by matching technological advances in laboratories with the right businesses.

To ensure its success, the government is putting in place other support programmes to benefit future tenants. This includes the $5 billion Innovation and Technology Fund to finance projects which contribute to the upgrading of Hong Kong's industries. And in a few moments, the Science Park will sign the co-operation agreements with six universities. As this close partnership takes root, a "community of innovation and technology" will come to life.