TNAG-1607-FCO40-22122-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1987 — Page 27

source in this area is just at our doorstep, and this is

China.

I understand that in China many universities and higher educational institutions are conducting extensive research. activities. These could be applied practically to improve the

productivity of our industry. In fact, some of the technological developments in China are of a very high standard but yet the development cost is much lower than what we have to incur to conduct our own research and developments. Needless to say, we also have other constraints such as the shortage of expertise and technologically advanced equipment.

4.

To illustrate my point, I was informed some time ago by a university in China that they had developed a low cost computer aided colour measuring and matching device which can be used in many manufacturing industries. Recently, I came across a similar European product which was produced at a considerably high cost. This example shows that there are many technological innovations in China which, for various reasons, are not well publicized nor known to us. However, if these innovations are made available to industralists in Hong Kong, it could prove to be a real asset to our industry. There is no doubt that China has the advanced technology that can be of benefit to our industralists. Even a number of major

industrial countries have confidence in certain areas of Chinese technology, which are available at a cost very competitive internationally. As another example, recently the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada and Brazil have expressed interest in employing Chinese rockets to send their communication satellites into the earth's orbit. However, rather than accepting the end-products of technological developments in China as a package, we could adopt a more flexible approach by putting up our own requirements to the relevant research institutions in China so that specially-designed devices could be made available according to our own specific requirements in Hong Kong.

5.

In addition, I understand that these are considerable spare capacities in some factories in China which are not run