Hong Kong Investment Recruitment Office, "landed Zhihui Jun"
In 2022, John Lee Ka-chiu, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR Government, stated plainly in his Policy Address that Hong Kong's labor force had lost about 140,000 people in the past two years. Strict epidemic prevention measures during the pandemic, coupled with changes in the social environment, have put pressure on Hong Kong's attractiveness to talents and enterprises.
The pressure on talent is continuously intensifying.
Mainland cities including Xi'an, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu had previously launched a "war for talent", and Hong Kong also put forward the "talent recruitment" initiative in October 2022.
Against this backdrop, John Lee Ka-chiu announced in the 2022 Policy Address the establishment of the "Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES)", with the aim of attracting potential and representative key enterprises around the world to settle in Hong Kong.
Just yesterday, the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises of Hong Kong introduced 18 more key enterprises, whose businesses cover advanced manufacturing and new energy, artificial intelligence, life health technology, fintech and other sectors.
This batch of enterprises includes Chery Automobile, Paradigm Intelligence, Yum China, Johnson & Johnson (Hong Kong), Rohto Pharmaceutical, Agibot, 51VR, China Media Capital, Star Charge, Point Gold International, Switzerland's Valcambi SA, Solana, etc.
Paul Chan Mo-po, Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong SAR Government, said that half of the enterprises introduced this time are from the Chinese mainland, and the other half from all over the world, reflecting that Hong Kong, as an international platform, can gather enterprises, talents and innovative ideas to jointly explore development opportunities. He noted that together with the enterprises introduced earlier, a total of 142 key enterprises have settled in Hong Kong, which is expected to bring about HK$84 billion in investment and create around 27,000 jobs.
Agibot Has Also Settled In
Four years ago, when Hong Kong established OASES, it packaged "attracting enterprises" and "recruiting talents" into a complete set of policies. When the detailed rules were announced in December 2022, the government set a target: to attract at least 35,000 talents each year from 2023 to 2025, totaling 105,000 people in three years.
Just yesterday, the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (hereinafter referred to as OASES) announced that 18 more key enterprises have settled in Hong Kong or expanded their businesses in the region.
The 18 enterprises in this batch include Chery Automobile, Paradigm Intelligence, Yum China, Johnson & Johnson (Hong Kong), Rohto Pharmaceutical, Agibot, 51VR, China Media Capital, Star Charge, Point Gold International, Switzerland's Valcambi SA, Solana, etc.
It is worth noting that Agibot, a leading industry embodied intelligence project, has also settled in Hong Kong.
To be recognized as a key enterprise, there is a hard indicator: the company has a plan to set up its headquarters or R&D center in Hong Kong.
In fact, Agibot has made frequent layouts in Hong Kong this year.
As early as May this year, Agibot launched its Hong Kong development plan. At the first Hong Kong Embodied Intelligence Industry Summit and Agibot APC2026, the "Hong Kong Embodied Intelligence Industry Co-Creation Plan" was officially released, putting forward the "One, Ten, Hundred, Thousand, Ten Thousand" goal: to establish Agibot's international R&D headquarters, set up several joint industry-university-research laboratories, cultivate dozens of innovative enterprises, and develop hundreds of industry partners.
In October, Agibot opened its office at Times Square, Causeway Bay. Agibot plans to invest tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars to promote joint research with Hong Kong universities and scientific research institutions, covering directions such as dexterous robot operation and embodied intelligence models, and has held campus recruitment briefings at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hong Kong.
As more and more enterprises pursue international development, Hong Kong seems to be an inevitable choice.
Talents Are Moving North
The story of Wang Tao is often mentioned.
He was born in Hangzhou and studied at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology from 2003. In 2006, Wang Tao, who was still a postgraduate student at HKUST, founded DJI in Shenzhen with his classmates. Their first office was in a warehouse of less than 20 square meters in Chegongmiao, Shenzhen, and later moved to a residential house in Lianhuabei Village. Its headquarters and R&D base have always been located in Shenzhen.
If he had not gone to Hong Kong, there might not be today's DJI. But talents have been moving north all the way.
A graduate of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering of the University of Hong Kong put the same choice more plainly. He interviewed many enterprises during campus recruitment, and the offered position was located in Songshan Lake. In the end, he chose Dongguan.
Prof. Li Zexiang from HKUST talked about this structure at the launch of the "Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Talent Index" in December 2023. His entrepreneurial map includes DJI and Googol Technology, so he is very familiar with this path. He said: "Hong Kong has strong basic research, but it is obviously lagging behind in knowledge transfer (transforming scientific research achievements into industries)."
He believes there are three crux issues: lack of supply chain and industrial support, small local market, and land shortage.
"With the rapid development of innovation and technology, there is a severe shortage of talents in the short term, where supply falls short of demand: first, the overall talent shortage is caused by the decline of the labor force; second, the salary and career development prospects of innovation and technology positions are not competitive enough to keep talents in the industry; third, only 30% of mainland students choose to stay and work in Hong Kong after graduation, while Hong Kong does not perform well in attracting international students."
The above views were put forward in the "Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Talent Index 2023" at the end of 2023. This is Hong Kong's first report on innovation and technology talents, pointing out that Hong Kong still has a large gap in the contribution of innovation to economic growth compared with other developed economies.
Many universities in Hong Kong rank high with outstanding professors, but this is only the upstream of the innovation and technology industry chain. The development of midstream and downstream links such as achievement transformation, product commercialization and market expansion is unsatisfactory. Investors have to wait for a long time to get returns, which reduces the interest of venture capital in related companies.
Chen Guanhua, Director of the Hong Kong Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, put it more sharply: "Hong Kong has no local industry and a small market, so it cannot retain talents." His solution is to keep enterprises like DJI and SenseTime in Hong Kong, and then introduce high-tech enterprises through the Northern Metropolis.
Retaining talents has reached a critical moment.
Four-year Performance Report
Back in 2022, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu stood on the stage and read out his first Policy Address in office. There is a sentence in the report: Hong Kong must be more proactive and aggressive in "attracting enterprises" and "recruiting talents".
The government responded with a set of coordinated measures:
The Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises, led by the Financial Secretary, provides special supporting facilities and one-stop services for key enterprises in the mainland and overseas, targeting industries including life health technology, artificial intelligence and data science, fintech, and advanced manufacturing and new energy technology.
The Talent Service Window, led by the Chief Secretary for Administration, coordinates the recruitment of talents from the mainland and overseas.
The "Special Team for Investment Promotion and Talent Recruitment", with 17 offices set up in mainland offices and overseas economic and trade offices, takes the initiative to target enterprises and talents.
The Top Talent Pass Scheme, targeting people with an annual income of over HK$2.5 million in the past year, and graduates from the world's top 100 universities.
Stamp duty refund: eligible non-local talents can apply for a refund of the additional stamp duty paid when purchasing their first residential property after becoming permanent residents.
The HK$30 billion Co-investment Fund, allocated from the Future Fund, is used to introduce and invest in enterprises that settle in Hong Kong.
After that, OASES went into full operation.
In the second year after OASES was launched, John Lee Ka-chiu, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR, said in his speech at the "Key Enterprise Partnership Launch Ceremony" that the first batch of 20 enterprises became key enterprise partners of the SAR Government. These enterprises come from the life health technology, artificial intelligence and data science, fintech, advanced manufacturing and new energy technology industries, and most of them will set up R&D centers or regional business headquarters in Hong Kong.
Shortly after, 2024 came. The second batch of introduced enterprises was confirmed. Together with the enterprises that settled in Hong Kong in 2023, they will invest more than HK$40 billion in Hong Kong and create more than 13,000 jobs, most of which are scientific research and management positions.
In 2025, the fifth batch of 18 key enterprises signed contracts with the Hong Kong SAR Government, including three global leading pharmaceutical enterprises, as well as leaders in industries such as large AI language models, autonomous driving technology, microelectronics, and cross-border financial services. 15 of the 18 enterprises are from the mainland, and Ant Group Digital Technologies is one of them. Other reports mention Baidu Intelligent Driving, Li Auto, etc.
In April this year, another 22 key enterprises signed contracts, covering life health technology, low-altitude economy, artificial intelligence, smart mobility and fintech, including several companies with a market value of over HK$100 billion. Irons Sze, Director of OASES, said that half of this batch of enterprises are from overseas. Hengrui Medicine is one of them.
"On the one hand, this allows the outside world to see the policy stability of Hong Kong, and on the other hand, it forms a stable market expectation, attracting many overseas fintech enterprises to develop in Hong Kong. In the current global situation, the importance of 'reliability' is increasingly prominent, and Hong Kong just provides such confidence and guarantee."
A 100-Billion-HKD Fund Is Under Preparation
Also in 2022, a name began to emerge.
In this year, the Policy Address mentioned an idea: to make good use of fiscal reserves to directly drive the industry, rather than just leaving them idle in accounts. The Chinese mainland has the experience of government-guided funds for industrial development, while Hong Kong did not have a government-led investment company at that time. Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC) is the answer to this gap, known by the outside world as "Hong Kong's version of Temasek".
Its business philosophy has only one sentence: "Every HK$1 buys opportunities for Hong Kong."
Different from ordinary sovereign funds, it shoulders dual missions: to make profits, and to keep enterprises and innovative technologies in Hong Kong.
Over the past few years, more than 200 projects have been invested in total, covering hard technology, life technology, health technology and new energy, 10 of which have been listed in Hong Kong, and more than 30 others are queuing up for listing.
At the same time, more changes have taken place.
Venture capital institutions and star companies from the Chinese mainland are also flocking to Hong Kong.
Xiaohongshu opened its first office outside the Chinese mainland in Hong Kong last June; Futen International, under the Shanghai State-owned Assets Operation Co., Ltd., was established last year, specifically helping investees take Hong Kong as their first stop for going global; Chen Yixuan Fund invited Daniel Zhang, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alibaba, to sit on the advisory committee of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; Zhongke Chuangxing just closed the first round of fundraising of its cooperation fund with the University of Hong Kong in March this year; Gobi Partners has successively established strategic cooperation funds with HKUST and the University of Hong Kong in the past year, all backed by HKIC.
A group of new players who are willing to bet on the long-term development of science and innovation are also gathering quietly.
More notably, in June this year, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po released a bigger news: HKIC is considering setting up an offshore RMB venture capital fund, which specifically invests in mainland enterprises and Chinese entrepreneurs that can lead global cutting-edge technologies.
In mid-September, John Lee Ka-chiu announced in the Policy Address that the Hong Kong SAR Government will step up efforts to support local start-ups, and it is expected to officially launch the "Innovation and Technology Industry Guiding Fund" within this year, with a scale of HK$100 billion. The total scale of the fund is expected to reach at least HK$400 billion, which means that the capital invested by the market will be at least three times the total capital contributed by the SAR Government.
Capital and talents seem to be all ready.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Rongzhong Finance" (ID: thecapital), written by Abu, and authorized for release by 36Kr.