IP: Hong Kong Hi-Tech

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

This is from a close associate who for political reasons would like to remain anonymous. It is in response to a report 
talking about Hong Kong but is widely applicable.


Dave


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Dave :


Thanks for forwarding the interesting report 
about HK. Below are my personal view, if you
need to forward or quote, I would rather be
anonymous :).


Personally, I think the government can only 
help up to a certain extent. Setting up some 
R&D funds for companies to apply is a good
way. However, if one is too eager to show fast
result, it can end up having the bureacrat 
pushing IT to companies throat when
they really don't need it, or getting companies
to invest on Hi-tech that the bureacrat thinks
are good. Usually, that means that the government
has to invest money, and the companies has to 
do the R&D, or turnkey project etc. A lot of
the times, companies do not think that there is a
market, and it end up to be a publicity & imaging
exercise. Tax payers' money is wasted.


Hong Kong has been pretty successful as a 
financial and manufacturing control hub for the
south china region. I think its status as a 
financial hub in the South China region will
remain unchange although Shanghai will become
the Wall Street of China, almost inevitably.
But I think it will take a while, a sucessful
financial hub requires expertise, infrastructure,
and a reasonable set of laws, and relatively 
corruption free government. It will take China
a while to achieve all that.
The major resource of Hong Kong is its people,
both hardworking, dynamic, creative. Most
of them understand why corruption is bad, and 
jurisdiction should always be made according to 
law. Do not take the last two points for granted, it 
took us almost 20 years to acheive that. I think
the government will do well simply by ensuring 
that the environment continue to nuture these 
characters. These will include minimum interference, 
low tax, freedom of press and expression, continue 
emphasis on English as a learning media etc.  


Hanging on to those values, I think we will do quite
well.