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Innovation and Technology

R&D and Technology Transfer

The government aims to increase gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) to 1.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product by 2022. Hong Kong's GERD amounted to $26.3 billion in 2019.

To encourage enterprises to conduct more R&D activities, the government allows tax deductions for qualifying R&D expenditure: 300 per cent for the first $2 million of such. expenditure and 200 per cent for the remaining balance.

Sixteen State Key Laboratories and six branches of the Chinese National Engineering Research Centre in Hong Kong are recognised by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The government provides maximum annual funding of $10 million for each of these facilities, and up to $8 million a year for the Technology Transfer Office of each of seven designated universities'.

The Innovation and Technology Fund assists in upgrading technology and promoting innovation in manufacturing and services. It has committed more than $3 billion to supporting over 4,100 projects undertaken by research institutions and the industry in 2020, over 320 of which were R&D projects with total funding exceeding $1 billion. Research funding also comes from the University Grants Committee and Research Grants Council, which provided $5.41 billion in 2019-20.

InnoHK Research Clusters

The government is establishing two InnoHK research clusters in the Science Park to encourage more collaborative research with non-local institutions. They are Health@InnoHK, focusing on healthcare technologies, and AIR@InnoHK, focusing on artificial intelligence and robotics technologies. Non-profit-making R&D centres that are set up in the research clusters will receive financial support from $10 billion approved for the purpose.

Start-ups

Hong Kong has one of the fastest-growing start-up ecosystems. According to an Invest Hong Kong survey, the number of start-up companies increased 51 per cent to 3,360 this year, when compared to 2017.

The government's $2 billion Innovation and Technology Venture Fund encourages venture capital funds to co-invest with the government in local I&T start-ups. As at end-2020, the fund had invested around $100 million in 19 local I&T start-ups and increased the number of co-investment partners from six to nine.

Each of six local universities2 gets up to $8 million government funding a year through the Technology Start-up Support Scheme for Universities to support their teams in starting

1 The City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and University of Hong Kong

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The City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and University of Hong Kong

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