The Chief Executive, Mr John Lee, today (June 2), in Astana, Kazakhstan, spoke on the Central Asia visit of the business delegation comprising representatives from Hong Kong and Mainland enterprises. He was accompanied by the Deputy Secretary for Justice, Dr Cheung Kwok-kwan; the Chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Professor Frederick Ma; the Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Ms Bonnie Chan; and the Chairman of the Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited, Mr Li Xiaojun. Following are the remarks by Mr Lee:

Reporter: You mentioned the visit to Nazarbayev University and the signing of two memorandums. What areas of research and education will be focused on and what outcomes are you hoping to get from that partnership?

Chief Executive: Nazarbayev University is Central Asia's No. 1 university, and also it has been ranked within the top quartile of international research universities, and this was achieved just in 16 years since its set up, so it's an outstanding result. President Xi Jinping delivered his landmark speech at the university to publicly announce in 2013 the initiative of the Belt and Road development. I, tomorrow, will visit Nazarbayev University and we will be signing some MOUs (Memoranda of Understanding). The Education University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University will be developing a working relationship with Nazarbayev University to further expand the collaboration between the higher education institutions of the two places. 

     In fact, a lot of Kazakh students study in Hong Kong. Over 500 are now studying in different universities in Hong Kong, and I had the opportunity of talking to some 20 of them. They are very bright students, and they have said that the education in the universities of Hong Kong , it’s not just the quality of the education that they think they can benefit from, but it's also because of the exposure and the connections they can establish through studying at a university with a lot of overseas students. In fact, Hong Kong houses five of the top international universities, and that is really a big record. In recent years, in fact, the co-operation between universities in Hong Kong with universities in Kazakhstan has been growing. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, for example, launched Asia's first joint undergraduate partnership programme in Eurasian Business with Nazarbayev University, and also the City University of Hong Kong established the CityUHK Institute for Research and Innovation at another university. The Education University of Hong Kong also established a joint Academy of Education in collaboration with two universities in Kazakhstan.

     Education is a big area we can work together. Hong Kong has five universities which are ranked within the top 100 within the world, despite Hong Kong being a small city with only 1 100 square kilometres. We focus on youth education, so is the Government of Kazakhstan, and I've heard that both in IT development, IT education, they have AI universities, which is mainly focused on developing IT and AI usage and application amongst the youth. That is actually what Hong Kong is getting at, and it's developing big, so there will be big room for improvement. I'm glad to see already some MOUs are being signed, which will open a new chapter of co-operation between the two places’ renowned universities. 

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the remarks.)

Ends/Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Issued at HKT 17:05

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