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Insight Forum Welcome remarks by Mrs Eva Cheng
President, Our Hong Kong Foundation

(13 September 2022)  The Honorable Financial Secretary Mr Paul Chan, Dr Victor Fung, Distinguished Guests, Ladies & Gentlemen, 
 
Good morning and a very warm welcome to all of you! Our Hong Kong Foundation takes great pleasure to present to you the second of a series of three Insight Forums on Hong Kong’s Way Forward. Today’s theme is: The Future of Hong Kong as a Regional Innovation Hub”.
 
It’s a cliché to say innovation is a mega trend of our time. Everybody talks about innovation. Innovation is not just about science and technology. We need social innovation. Public Policy innovation. Business Model innovation. Arts and Cultural innovation.

For Hong Kong, innovation is not new. It has been in our DNA for centuries. From a backward fishing village, Hong Kong has risen to become Asia’s world city because of innovation. We have no resources but our people have ample amount of innovation. In the 80s and 90s, we started to tap on the cheap land and labour resources in the mainland to become one of the world’s top producer of electronics, toys, watches, jewellery.  The model worked so well that the western world followed. That in turn created a golden era of “Made in China”, now proudly transitioning to “Made by China”. The power of innovation has changed the world, is changing the world, and will continue to change the world.

Which is why we are so pleased to see the HKSAR Government putting in huge effort and resources to fast track innovation. Yes, we are far from perfect, but there’s no deny that our infrastructure, our ecosystem for sci-tech innovation, our advanced legal and professional services, venture capital and incubators, fundraising at the stock exchange are all growing and expanding in the right direction. Our universities in Hong Kong are consistently ranked among the top in the world. Add this to the National 14th Five-Year Plan which supports Hong Kong to become a global innovation and technology hub, opportunities abound in Hong Kong. We just need to step up the game!

Against this backdrop, we are honoured to have our Financial Secretary Mr Paul Chan to give us an Opening Speech, and the Foundation’s Vice Chairman Dr Victor Fung to enlighten us on “The Future of Hong Kong as a Regional Innovation Hub.” After Dr Fung’s keynote address, he will host three distinguished panellists, Dr George Lam, Dr Sunny Chai, and Mr Simon Loong for a discussion. They are all innovators in their own ways. We are very grateful to them for giving us time this morning and look forward to hearing their insightful sharings.
 
Last but not least, I'd like to thank our Venue Sponsor Hongkong Land and Mr Robert Wong who's here with us today for giving us the privilege to use this beautiful venue for our Insight Forum Series. 
 
Thanks once again for joining our Forum today. I wish you a fruitful time! Thank You!