Keynote speech by SITI at Hong Kong New Zealand Business Association Gala Dinner in Auckland (English only) (with photo)
******************************************************************************************
Distinguished guests, friends from New Zealand and Hong Kong, ladies and gentlemen,
It is a pleasure to join you this evening to celebrate the achievements of the Hong Kong-New Zealand business community.
New Zealand is a nation where growth begins with the land. Its agricultural strength and world-class food and dairy industries reflect a deep respect for nature, and a philosophy that every great harvest begins with a single seed.
Hong Kong is shaped by a very different landscape. Our city grows vertically, driven by density, connectivity, and an unrelenting pace. Yet, Hong Kong shares the same belief that small beginnings, when supported by the right conditions, can grow into something remarkable. Our strength has always been our ability to turn ideas into impact, and to scale innovation far beyond our physical size.
This shared mindset - the ability to turn seeds into scale - is reflected in the achievements of every awardee here tonight. Through resilience and ingenuity, you nurtured your ideas into successful enterprises.
It is also the story of Hong Kong's transformation into an international innovation and technology (I&T) centre. This journey began with the promulgation of our I&T Development Blueprint in 2022, which set out a clear roadmap for the decade ahead. Over the past few years, we have been strengthening an ecosystem for innovative ideas to take root and flourish. Our R&D (research and development) expenditure has reached record highs. Hong Kong, together with Guangzhou and Shenzhen, now ranks first among the world's top innovation clusters. For a compact city like Hong Kong to host five of the world's top 100 universities reminds us that scale is not just measured in size, but more importantly, in vision, talent, and determination.
To provide fertile soil for our I&T development, we are building a comprehensive I&T ecosystem anchored by three major I&T Parks and five key R&D institutions, guided by clear industry policies focused on life and health technologies, AI and robotics, as well as advanced manufacturing and new energy.
Our three I&T Parks are: Cyberport - our flagship digital hub; Hong Kong Science Park - our mature, full-spectrum I&T centre; and the newly opened Hong Kong Park of the Hetao Shenzhen - Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone, which is envisioned to develop into a world-class innovation platform connecting international companies with the Chinese Mainland, particularly the Greater Bay Area with a population of 88 million and a massive GDP of roughly NZD3.8 trillion. As for the five key R&D institutions, in addition to the Hong Kong Productivity Council and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute, which have been operating for decades, we are establishing three new strategic R&D institutes dedicated to microelectronics, AI, and life and health technology.
Through the InnoHK research clusters, our flagship R&D initiative, we collaborate with 30 world-renowned universities and institutes from 12 economies, with over 3 000 talents from around the world to pursue cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs. To further attract top researchers, we launched a HK$3 billion Frontier Technology Research Support Scheme, approximately NZD655 million, to support local universities to recruit international experts in frontier fields such as AI and quantum information in Hong Kong.
We are also building new engines of Hong Kong's high-quality development through robust I&T infrastructure. Apart from the Hetao Hong Kong Park I just mentioned, the new I&T land in the adjacent San Tin Technopole will take up the transformation of research outcomes derived from the Hetao Hong Kong Park and integrate with the comprehensive industry supply chains in the Greater Bay Area. Together, these two I&T zones will form a complete research-to-market chain and drive our future I&T development by leveraging the city's unique advantages under "one country, two systems" while deepening synergy with Shenzhen and other cities in the Greater Bay Area.
To accelerate AI development, a core industry of Hong Kong's future economy, we are investing heavily in computing power. Our Sandy Ridge Data Facility Cluster will deliver 180 000 PFLOPS (peta-floating point operations per second) of computing power by 2032, a 36-fold increase from today's capacity, to meet the surging computational demands. The cluster will also serve as a strategic gateway for cross-boundary data flow and develop Hong Kong into an international data hub.
We also introduced targeted funding schemes to accelerate industry development and strengthen collaboration among the government, industry, academia, research and investment sectors. Notably, the Research, Academic and Industry Sectors One-plus Scheme supports universities in transforming outstanding R&D outcomes into real applications. The New Industrialisation Acceleration Scheme supports the setting up of smart production lines in Hong Kong. And the I&T Industry-Oriented Fund to be launched very soon will channel market capital to invest in emerging and future industries of strategic importance, including AI and semiconductors. These three HK$10 billion initiatives alone represent a combined investment of NZD6.6 billion.
Good policies, powerful infrastructure and catalytic funding are the water, sunlight and nutrients that allow innovation to grow. But climate matters too. Ranked second globally in the 2026 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook and fourth in the 2025 World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, Hong Kong offers global capital and talent, a trusted law regime, a simple tax system, robust IP protection and unparalleled access to the Chinese Mainland and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) markets, providing an ideal environment for talent, investors and enterprises to thrive. With such a favourable climate, we witnessed a record high of 5 200 start-ups in Hong Kong. We also facilitated more than 650 leading I&T or high potential enterprises in setting up or expanding their businesses in Hong Kong over the past few years.
Tonight, we honour not only outstanding companies, but also the spirit of partnership that has long connected our two economies. As we enter a new era defined by food technology, green transformation, AI-driven agriculture, and sustainable production, the opportunities before us are promising. Hong Kong stands ready to serve as the gateway and accelerator, with talent, infrastructure and global reach, to help New Zealand innovations grow from seeds to scale. I hope that the companies in this room will be among the first to pioneer new breakthroughs.
Thank you to the Hong Kong New Zealand Business Association for organising tonight's event. To our awardees, I offer my warmest congratulations. Let us seize this moment to plant new seeds of collaboration. I look forward to growing the next chapter of Hong Kong-New Zealand partnership together. Thank you.
Ends/Friday, June 26, 2026
Issued at HKT 16:48
Issued at HKT 16:48
NNNN
Photo
