Hong Kong as a hub
Platforms for business success
- 1 Private and public sector investments are pouring into research and development, innovation and technology, augmenting Hong Kong’s traditional strengths
- 2 High-end production and smart industry are making a comeback, putting the city’s manufacturing heritage to creative use
- 3 Ample office and studio spaces range from hi-tech innovation parks to high-ceilinged post-industrial warehouses
TECHNOLOGY
Innovation hub
Science ParkSensetime’s infinity-symbol shaped logo adorns the outside of the building that it occupies in Science Park, a waterfront innovation campus and incubator in the New Territories. The artificial-intelligence start-up was founded in 2014 by Tang Xiao’ou, a professor from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Sensetime employs about 200 staff at Science Park and it is already a “unicorn”, with a valuation in excess of $1bn (€900m).
This decade Hong Kong has been transformed into a hub for artificial intelligence, robotics, fintech, smart city and biomedical technology. Alongside nurturing homegrown champions it is also attracting overseas companies that want to tap into the huge China market. Hanson Robotics relocated its headquarters from Texas to Hong Kong; in May it entered the Science Park’s business acceleration programme.
Each of Science Park’s 750 companies, from Sensetime to Siemens, is required to dedicate at least 50 per cent of staff to R&D. “We have a strong platform for technological innovation,” says the park’s CEO, Albert Wong, whose elevator pitch for Hong Kong covers the city’s legal framework and access to investors, talent and mainland China.
“Hong Kong is home to five universities in the global top 100, which provides a good talent pool for innovation and technology,” says Wong. The private-sector veteran has just re-signed for another three years at the helm. With the government pouring money into innovation and technology, he is working on plans for a new site right next to mainland China that is four times the size of the existing park.
q&a
Mei Mei Song
Brand director, Plaza Premium GroupFrequent flyers will recognise the Plaza Premium name. The group’s pay-to-enter airport lounges are a feature of international hubs from Heathrow in London to Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong, where the business originated in 1998. The family-owned company plans to open 40 new lounges in China over the next five years and later this year the Songs’ latest Aerotel transit hotel lands in Beijing.
Why was Hong Kong a good location to set up Plaza Premium?
Hong Kong is a giant transit hub and that has allowed us to grow our business and understand the needs of flyers. It may be difficult to come up with a good idea but setting up a business in Hong Kong is not difficult at all.
What have you brought to the business?
My brother and I were kids when our parents were building Plaza Premium. Hong Kong International Airport runs around the clock so we saw them there a lot. As a second generation I want to play my part in making our lounges better and more relevant. We’re business travellers as well so we experience it all ourselves and work out the pain points.
What’s behind the scenes?
We study many factors: government, routing, airlines, airports, traffic, the economics of a country. All lead to the success of aviation. When you build airports you build for the future. Airlines take care of the air experience and we take care of the land experience.
How closely do you work with airlines?
Very closely. We talk about how to train staff and do travel consultancy with many airlines. We want to enhance the travel experience for their passengers – and our guests.
manufacturing
Ronna Chao
Chairwoman, NovetexHong Kong grew rich making clothes and smart businesses are not letting this know-how go to waste. Ronna Chao chairs Novetex, one of Hong Kong’s oldest textile manufacturers. Last October she cut the ribbon on a fabric recycling plant in Tai Po that is tasked with reducing the city’s collective pile of discarded clothing. “On a daily basis, over 300 tonnes of textiles are sent to our landfills,” says Chao. Novetex’s new business arm is a good fit for Hong Kong, where there is growing demand for sustainability and the government is promoting the reindustrialisation of certain parts of the city.
Magic machine
A machine called “Billie” occupies pride of place at Novetex’s textile recycling facility. It turns old scraps of fabric into rolls of toxic-free yarn that can then be transformed into high-quality thread. The process occurs without drawing any water or emitting harmful emissions.
fashion
Marie France Van Damme
Owner, Marie France Van DammeMarie France Van Damme describes the birth of her namesake fashion label as a “new adventure”. The French Canadian designer created samples in 2011 that were picked up by Harrods in London and Bergdorf Goodman in New York. “When Harrods’ chief merchant saw my samples she said, ‘This is what I want to wear on holiday,’” says Van Damme, while surrounded by clothing racks at her showroom in Kwun Tong, Hong Kong’s former textile hub.
Van Damme has 35 years of experience. Arriving in Hong Kong from New York in the 1980s, she started manufacturing womenswear for US and European high-street retailers before moving production to mainland China. As fast fashion squeezed margins she decided to design her own ready-to-wear, “semi-couture” label, using luxury fabrics sourced from French mills and a core team of 10 veteran seamstresses, based in Hong Kong – her home of four decades.
Her “Made in Hong Kong” kaftans, tunics, swimsuits, beach cover-ups and kimonos are stocked by five-star hotels all over the world. Van Damme’s seasonless resortwear mixes vivid colours and her favoured monochrome. “The whole idea of our collection is that you buy it on holiday but you can wear it in the city and vice versa,” she says.
Each item takes half a day to produce and the micro-factory in Kwun Tong produces about 600 per week. On a Friday afternoon seamstresses are stitching and sewing intricate seams. The following week these items will be on sale at the brand’s IFC shopping mall. Opened in 2013, the Hong Kong flagship is the first of Van Damme’s 13 directly operated shops, which never go on sale. Dubai recently joined a jetsetting line-up that also includes Miami, Las Vegas, Beverly Hills, Marrakech and Bangkok.