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The Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Frederick Ma, visited Cyberport today (November 1) to gain a better understanding of its development towards the vision of establishing as a leading information technology (IT) hub of the Asia-Pacific region.
Mr Ma was first briefed by the Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited (HKCMCL), Mr Nicholas Yang, on the latest development of Cyberport.
Touring the i-Resource Centre at Cyberport, Mr Ma was delighted to learn that its project on digital copyright protection "DigitalCopyright.hk, One-Stop Digital Content Marketplace" (www.digitalcopyright.hk) had recently won the World Summit Award 2007 (e-Business Category). He said the winning project shown how Cyberport created an innovative unified digital rights management platform to facilitate the publishing and distribution of digital content.
"This demonstrates Hong Kong's endeavour and competitive edge in intellectual property protection, which is a pillar for the further development of digital content industry in Hong Kong," he said.
"The Award also speaks for Cyberport colleagues' good work and wealth of innovative ideas in applying digital rights management technology," he added.
One of Cyberport's missions is to spearhead the development of the digital media industry. To this end, the Digital Media Centre (DMC) was established in 2004 to provide the necessary hardware, software and technical support to the industry.
During his visit to the DMC, Mr Ma saw for himself the capabilities of various digital media hardware and software services available at the centre, including the first Arrilaser digital-film recorder in Hong Kong.
The Cyberport Incubation and Training Centre (IncuTrain Centre) was established in 2005 under the sponsorship of the Innovation and Technology Fund to support 47 Hong Kong incubation companies in the digital entertainment and digital media industries for a three-year period.
Meeting with the incubatees at the centre, Mr Ma learnt about their latest projects and was pleased to know that many incubatees have successfully attracted business partners or investments from venture capitalists.
"The programme tailor-made by Cyberport for local entrepreneurs is crucial in strengthening the digital entertainment industry as one of the creative industries in Hong Kong," Mr Ma said.
"The Cyberport has done an outstanding job in developing itself as a regional centre of excellence in IT and digital media training for creating human capital in IT," he continued.
Mr Ma also visited other facilities at Cyberport, including the Network Operation Centre and Wireless Development Centre.
Noting that the occupancy rate of Cyberport had kept increasing and was standing around 87%, he hoped HKCMCL would keep up its good work and move on to help Cyberport accomplish its public missions.
"With over 60 tenants of multinational and local enterprises, I hope the tenants at Cyberport could leverage on the clustering potential here for the further development of innovation and creativity," he said.
Before concluding his visit, Mr Ma took the opportunity to meet with the Cyberport tenants to exchange views on the development of the information and communications technology industry.
Ends/Thursday, November 1, 2007
Issued at HKT 19:25
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