Making all-out efforts to put President Xi's instruction into practice, Hong Ko

　　Following President Xi Jinping's important instruction on promoting scientific and technological cooperation between the Mainland and Hong Kong and supporting Hong Kong to become an international centre for innovative science and technology, Hong Kong ushers in a new era of opportunity for developing innovative science and technology.　　Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor responded proactively and promptly yesterday to make relevant arrangements.　　It can be well expected that after the spirit of President Xi's instruction is positively put into practice, the prospects of Hong Kong's development of innovative science and technology will surely be very promising.

　　Carrie Lam said yesterday that funding for research projects in Hong Kong through the Central Finance Science and Technology Plans would bring the scientific advantages of the Mainland and the SAR into full play, laying the foundation for the operation of the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park in the Loop in future and paving the way for building an international centre for innovative science and technology in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area.

　　These days, good news for the development of innovative science and technology in Hong Kong keeps coming out one piece after another: the policy allowing universities and research institutes in Hong Kong to apply funding from the Central Finance Science and Technology Plans and the Pilot Technology Talent Admission Scheme to lure scientific talents from overseas and the Mainland have already been successively rolled out, which will enable Hong Kong to get on board the express train of the nation's development of innovative science and technology making such development in Hong Kong very promising.

　　Development of innovative science and technology in Hong Kong starts late and slow, so in order to catch up, Hong Kong must invest heavily, inputting more resources into the development of innovative science and technology and giving it more policy support.　　The SAR Government should further increase the weight of R&D (research and development) expenditure in GDP (gross domestic product), so that each year capital input into R&D could reach nearly $100 billion to sharply increase resources input in R&D projects in the universities.　　Boosted by such a "silver-bullet" policy, development of innovative science and technology could be expected to catch up in a higher speed.　　Only in this way, can Hong Kong hopefully become an international capital for innovative science and technology and live up to the nation's expectation.

　　A success in developing innovative science and technology also hangs on Hong Kong's own effort and hard work.　　The government has already reserved $50 billion from the fiscal surplus for increasing input into the development of innovative science and technology.　　The orientation is right, but resources input could be more daring and measures could be more aggressive.　　

　　First of all, the strength of R&D in new technology could be sharply enhanced.　　The government sets the target of increasing it to 1.5 per cent by the year 2022, by then annual R&D expenditure will reach $45 billion, of which $25 billion is from the private sector.

　　Shenzhen, which is separated from Hong Kong just be a river, is worthy of being called Asia's Silicon Valley.　　Shenzhen's R&D expenditure reaches over RMB100 billion, equivalent to four per cent of its GDP, which is far higher than the target Hong Kong sets for the weight of R&D expenditure in its GDP.　　Therefore, the SAR Government should timely raise the weight of R&D expenditure to two or three per cent of the GDP, so as to narrow the gap with Shenzhen.

　　Secondly, in order to push forward the development of innovative science and technology, the government must get itself highly involved and play a leading role.　　After rolling out tax deductions for enterprises' spending in R&D and the Pilot Technology Talent Admission Scheme, more R&D labs and manufacturing innovation centres could be built and funding on R&D projects in universities could be expanded.　　To lure overseas and Mainland scientific talents to come to Hong Kong, giving them tax incentives and preferential treatments in medical care and children education could also be considered.　　In this way, it is believed there will soon be noticeable progress in catching up with development of innovative science and technology.

　　Thirdly, it is necessary to further ease restrictions on the development of innovative science and technology, so that new technologies that do not comply with current regulations could be tested.　　For instance, the Science Park in Sha Tin plans to set up a smart park to conduct open-road tests for self-driving cars between the Chinese University and the Science Park.　　Whether this can be done really hangs on relevant authorities' positive cooperation and coordination.

　　We have reasons to believe that after President Xi's important instruction is implemented with all-out efforts, and after the SAR Government proactively takes effective measures, Hong Kong is bound to successfully develop itself into an international centre for innovative science and technology, and to make more, newer and greater contributions to building a strong country of science and technology and to the nation's rejuvenation.　　

16 May 2018