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Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu outlined six areas to push forward "Finance+" with aims to serve the real economy in Hong Kong's first Five-Year Plan on Wednesday, including promoting patient capital and venture capital investments in technological and industry innovations.
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On "Finance + Technological Innovation", the government plans to set up an Innovation and Technology Industry-Oriented Fund with a provision of HK$10 billion for five thematic areas covering life and health technology, artificial intelligence and robotics, semiconductors and smart devices, digitalisation, upgrading and transformation, as well as future and sustainable development.
The fund size, expected to reach at least HK$40 billion, will comprise contributions from the government and the market at a ratio of 1 to at least 3, Lee said.
SAR will also roll out the Innovation and Technology Venture Fund Enhanced Scheme with a provision of up to HK$2.5 billion for jointly setting up a matching fund with the market to invest in start-ups of strategic industries, while at least HK$7.5 billion of market capital is expected to be raised under the scheme.
The wholly government-owned Hong Kong Investment Corporation will deploy patient capital to spearhead co-investment in hard and core technology, biotechnology, new energy and green technology, and related applications.
In terms of digitalization, the government will advance practical applications regarding applying tokenisation technology across a diverse set of asset classes and use cases through the Project Ensemble launched by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, as well as the development of emerging digital assets, such as the Central Bank Digital Currency, stablecoins, tokenised deposits, tokenised bonds and tokenised securities products in a rigorous manner.
As for "Finance + Trade", Hong Kong will continue to take forward Project Cargoˣ to integrate the cargo and trade data platforms, facilitate trade document digitalisation and cross-border data exchange, and promote adoption of electronic authentication in the digitalisation of trade documents.
