Hong Kong Business News

Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki today chaired the third meeting of the third-term Human Resources Planning Commission.

Representatives of Hong Kong Talent Engage (HKTE) and the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES) briefed members on their achievements in trawling for talent, enterprises and investment as well as their work plans, and exchanged views with them.

Since December 2022, the Government has been implementing an array of new initiatives to proactively attract and retain talent under the steer of the Chief Secretary. They included enhancing various existing talent admission schemes, establishing the Top Talent Pass Scheme and running the HKTE online platform.

At the meeting, members were pleased to note that the various talent admission schemes had been well received.

As at end-February 2024, the schemes had received a total of more than 250,000 applications, about 160,000 of which had been approved. More than 100,000 talented individuals have arrived in Hong Kong, far exceeding the Government's annual target of drawing in at least 35,000.

In May 2024, HKTE will organise the Global Talent Summit and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area High-quality Talent Development Conference to promote Hong Kong's unique advantages as an international talent hub.

At the meeting, members were pleased to learn that OASES had met more than 200 enterprises so far, and that following the announcement in October 2023 of the first batch of about 30 strategic enterprises with their operations set up or expanded in Hong Kong, OASES would welcome the second batch of around 20 enterprises this month.

All these companies are expected to bring about more than $40 billion in investment and about 13,000 jobs in total.

Overall, members agreed with the current-term Government on its strategies of proactively attracting talent and enterprises, and were pleased to see the good results of the work by HKTE and OASES to help boost Hong Kong's competitiveness.

Mr Chan supplemented that the Government would press ahead with attracting more top-notch talent and strategic enterprises through HKTE and OASES, to expedite the development of new quality productive forces for injecting stronger impetus into the city's high-quality development.

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