Chen Siqi

vankochensq@163.com

THE newly unveiled plan aimed at enhancing the high-quality development of the Shenzhen Park of the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone (HTCZ) has been welcomed by people from various sectors of society, particularly among institutions and enterprises located on the Shenzhen side of HTCZ.

“The release of the plan has increased my confidence in the future of technological development between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. I see numerous opportunities in the next 10 years,” said Aldous Ng, co-founder of CU Coding, a Hong Kong company specializing in network coding technology. The company opened a Shenzhen office in the HTCZ Shenzhen Park in June.

Ng highlighted three key areas in which their company stands to gain from the cooperation zone’s positioning stated in the plan. CU Coding has established a digital-twin platform, facilitating cross-border data flow between the two parks situated in Hong Kong and Shenzhen within the HTCZ. Given that one of the cooperation zone’s strategic objectives is to evolve into a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) hub, particularly for large-scale production across industries such as the digital economy, CU Coding foresees a significant influx of international talents, drawn to the cross-border data transmission opportunities offered by the digital economy sector.

Xie Laifeng, deputy director of the Hong Kong, Macao and Regional Development Department of the China Development Institute, described the plan as a significant initiative.

HTCZ Shenzhen Park plays a crucial role as an experimental zone for the adoption of cutting-edge international rules. “This signifies that it is intended to align with the most advanced research policies and regulations in the field of scientific and technological innovation in Hong Kong and the global community, in order to cultivate more sophisticated mechanisms,” Xie said.

Gao Lingyun, executive director of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Co-Innovation Institute from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), said the plan “is inspiring.”

HKUST, the first Hong Kong university to establish a presence in HTCZ, has been actively engaged in collaborative innovation and industry-university-research activities since 2019. Over the past three years, the Shenzhen-Hong Kong collaborative laboratory cluster, comprising 19 laboratories covering cutting-edge IT, materials science, artificial intelligence and others, has been established.

“We hope to leverage HKUST’s strengths and align with our vision of Shenzhen-Hong Kong collaboration,” Gao said. She believed that the measures outlined in the plan, including integration with overseas research mechanisms, increased cross-border utilization of scientific research funds, and the potential adoption of Hong Kong and Macao auditing standards, will greatly boost the enthusiasm of scientific researchers and are poised to empower Hong Kong’s scientific researchers to expedite their endeavors.