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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Gregory So, at the SuperCharger Demo Day today (April 7):
Renu (Co-founder and Managing Director of SuperCharger, Dr Renu Bhatia); Janos (Co-founder of SuperCharger, Mr Janos Barberis); Joanna (Managing Director of TusPark (Hong Kong), Miss Joanna Cheung); distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
I am delighted to be here this afternoon to listen to some of the exciting pitches at SuperCharger's first demo day. I would like to thank Renu for inviting me to join you all at this great event.
I am glad to witness the growth of the FinTech ecosystem in Hong Kong. In the past 18 months, a number of international financial institutions and professional services firms, including Accenture, DBS, KPMG, Nest and of course TusPark have chosen to establish FinTech incubators and accelerator programs in our city. This underlines our competitive advantages in developing FinTech in Hong Kong. With so much talent and investment joining this exciting area, our FinTech ecosystem indeed has a very bright future.
The Hong Kong Government will continue to facilitate the development of this ecosystem. For example, Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) has been providing a one stop service to assist FinTech companies. We want to facilitate our FinTech stakeholders to use Hong Kong as a lab, a showcase and a global launch pad. My InvestHK colleagues, including Charles and Jayne here, stand ready to help you in any way that we can.
I would like to congratulate all the participants pitching here this afternoon. You are part of the very first start-ups in Hong Kong to help kick-start our FinTech ecosystem. You all play an important role in enhancing the competitiveness of Hong Kong. You should be proud of that.
I wish you all a terrific afternoon and a successful entrepreneurship journey.
Thank you.
Ends/Thursday, April 7, 2016
Issued at HKT 18:44
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