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Opinion
Late to the game, Hong Kong’s big splash on tech must pay off
- Forced now to diversify its economy, Hong Kong is moving forward on giving its industrial base the talent, land and funding that it needs
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Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee is convenor of the Executive Council and chairwoman of the New People’s Party.
National industrial strategies, the subject of intense study and debates in the 1980s in the wake of the phenomenal success of Japan’s industrial economy, have returned to the centre stage of global attention. Much of this stems from the fact that two of the world’s largest economies, the US and China, have focused more on industrial policy.
In August 2022, US President Joe Biden signed into law two pieces of legislation, the Chips and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided billions of dollars of subsidies, loans and tax incentives to revitalise American semiconductor manufacturing and accelerate the country’s green transition.
China has been agonising over the need to enhance productivity, and hence the profit earned from every piece of good produced, ever since it became a manufacturing powerhouse. Why not earn more by making your own smartphones than by making or assembling parts for Apple’s smartphones? China has long strived to move up the technology ladder to generate more socio-economic benefits as well as strengthen national security.
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