Third-term Human Resources Planning Commission convenes third meeting and fully supports work of HKTE and OASES
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Since December 2022, the Government has been implementing an array of new initiatives to proactively attract and retain talent under the steer of the Chief Secretary for Administration. They included enhancing various existing talent admission schemes, establishing the Top Talent Pass Scheme, and running the online platform of HKTE. The physical office of HKTE was set up in October 2023 to steadfastly provide comprehensive one-stop support services for talent interested in coming to Hong Kong and those who have arrived. HKTE is actively expanding its network of collaborative partners to organise themed events, as well as online and offline activities such as themed seminars. It aims to assist incoming talent in obtaining necessary information about employment, education, settlement, entrepreneurship, etc., thereby enabling them to adapt to their new life as early as possible and encouraging them to settle in Hong Kong for development.
At the meeting, members were pleased to note that the various talent admission schemes had been well received. As at end-February 2024, the schemes had received a total of more than 250 000 applications, about 160 000 of which had been approved. More than 100 000 talents have arrived in Hong Kong, far exceeding the Government's annual target of drawing in at least 35 000 talents. HKTE will continue to proactively attract talent from around the world to Hong Kong. In May 2024, it will organise the Global Talent Summit and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) High-quality Talent Development Conference to promote Hong Kong's unique advantages as an international talent hub and foster the flow of talent and development opportunities among GBA cities.
OASES was established in December 2022. It has been engaging and negotiating with strategic enterprises from life and health technology, artificial intelligence and data science, financial technology, as well as advanced manufacturing and new-energy technology, to formulate special facilitation measures for them to set up operations in Hong Kong. The Advisory Committee on Attracting Strategic Enterprises, chaired by the Financial Secretary, was set up in early 2023 to consult business sectors regularly on the overall strategy of attracting strategic enterprises and target industries.
At the meeting, members were pleased to learn that OASES had met with more than 200 enterprises so far; and that following the announcement in October 2023 of the first batch of about 30 strategic enterprises with their operations set up or expanded in Hong Kong, OASES would welcome the second batch of around 20 enterprises in March 2024. All these companies are expected to bring about more than $40 billion in investment and about 13 000 jobs in total. Also, many of them are companies with market capitalisation or valuation of more than $10 billion or engaging in cutting-edge technologies. They will attract upstream, midstream and downstream partners from their industry chains, thereby promoting the development of the innovation and technology sector.
Overall, members agreed with the current-term Government on its strategies of proactively attracting talent and enterprises, and were pleased to note the good results of the work by HKTE and OASES so far to help boost the competitiveness of Hong Kong. Mr Chan said that the Government would press ahead with attracting more top-notch talent and strategic enterprises, through HKTE and OASES respectively, to expedite the development of new quality productive forces for injecting stronger impetus into the city's high-quality development.
Ends/Monday, March 18, 2024
Issued at HKT 17:30
Issued at HKT 17:30
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