CHINESE President Xi Jinping’s visit to the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) last year re-emphasised Hong Kong’s innovation trajectory. The visit, coupled with the 2017 Framework Agreement and the 2019 Outline Development Plan, further underlined the importance of Hong Kong in Xi’s vision for the Greater Bay Area’s (GBA) innovation advancement.

Hong Kong’s aspirations to become a thriving innovation and technology hub can be fuelled by learning from Singapore’s success in this field.

In the competitive innovation landscape of Asia, Singapore has emerged as a frontrunner in both the quantity and quality of patents, as highlighted by a recent study from Asia Competitiveness Institute. In 2021, Singapore registered more than 6,000 patents and earned more than US$11.6 billion in revenue from intellectual property (IP), according to statistics from the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore and IndexMundi.