Hong Kong Launches New Industrial Acceleration Program to Boost Smart Manufacturing

TapTechNews September 17th news, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government's Innovation and Technology Commission yesterday announced the launch of the New Industrial Acceleration Program (I briefly called the Acceleration Program), to provide funding for enterprises engaged in strategic industries to set up new intelligent production facilities in Hong Kong, and encourage enterprises to achieve intelligent manufacturing by using innovative technologies to enhance competitiveness.

The spokesperson of the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission said that in order to promote the downstream new industrial development, the Chief Executive of the Special Administrative Region proposed in the 2023 Policy Address to allocate HKD 10 billion (TapTechNews note: currently about RMB 9.098 billion) to implement the New Industrial Acceleration Program. The Special Administrative Region government hopes to encourage enterprises to use innovative technologies to achieve intelligent manufacturing and enhance competitiveness.

In the New Industrial Acceleration Program, the Special Administrative Region government will, in the form of a 1 (government): 2 (enterprise) matching, fund enterprises engaged in strategic industries (namely life health technology, artificial intelligence and data science, and advanced manufacturing and new energy technology) to set up new intelligent production facilities in Hong Kong.

For each application project, the total project cost is at least HKD 300 million, and the enterprise must invest no less than HKD 200 million, while the upper limit of the Special Administrative Region government's subsidy amount is one-third of the total expenditure of the approved project or HKD 200 million, whichever is lower. Each enterprise can have a maximum of two approved projects under the program, and the upper limit of the total subsidy amount for each enterprise is HKD 200 million.

In addition, the Special Administrative Region government will provide additional funding for enterprises with approved projects under the program to hire research talents to encourage them to conduct R & D in Hong Kong or expand their R & D scale, and to allow the relevant enterprises to hire non-local talents required for the establishment or operation of new production facilities.