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Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun- wah said at the annual general meeting of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries yesterday that the government is determined to push high value-added development.
Tsang said developed countries like Germany, the United States and Japan are moving towards advanced manufacturing and are proposing different strategies to push re-industrialization, and the mainland had proposed a"made in China 2025" plan last year to transform the manufacturing sector towards high value-added development.
"The key for Hong Kong to take on the path of re-industrialization is not to bring back labor-intensive and low skill manufacturing", Tsang said, "but instead, it is about how to make the best use of advanced technologies and integrate them with Hong Kong's practical environment and advantages to develop a high value-added manufacturing industry.
"As a result, the goal of economic development driven by multi-industries can be realized."
Tsang said Hong Kong's manufacturing industry has a very solid foundation and there had also been fruitful achievements on the technology research front.
A local company from the Science and Technology Park had recently won the best wearable mobile technology award at the Mobile World Congress held in February with their locally- designed earphones which could be used to monitor the user's health. "We have solid foundation and great potential on information technology, internet, wearable devices, medical equipment and robotics technologies," said Tsang.
The government would invest HK$8.2 billion to build advanced manufacturing centers in Tseung Kwan O and had injected HK$2 billion to launch a midstream research programme for universities to provide more projects.
Tsang said a pilot technology voucher programme will be launched to subsidize small and medium enterprises' use of technological services and solutions to improve productivity and upgrade business processes.
He was confident that Hong Kong would be able to promote local products to potential customers around the world.
Federation of Hong Kong Industries chairman Daniel Cheng Man-chung said Hong Kong's manufacturing industry faces challenges from decline in demand from traditional export markets, increase in production costs and shortage of labor.
The territory's industrialists needed to adapt to the new business environment and catch up on the trend of re- industrialization, he added.
Cheng said Hong Kong's small and medium enterprises' ability to automate their manufacturing system was not too far behind Germany's SMEs and he hoped the government could provide more support on the tax front.
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