HK youth shine at ‘Skills Olympics’

The WorldSkills Competition took place in Lyon, France, in September. This year, the Construction Industry Council sent seven competitors to participate in six categories.

Next generation: Ricky Chow won a medallion for excellence at WorldSkills Lyon 2024 in welding - a skill taught to him by his father, which he is proud to showcase to the world. Source from news.gov.hk

One of them was Wesley Fong, 20, who graduated from the Hong Kong Institute of Construction in 2022. He won the championship in the 2nd Hong Kong Construction Skills Competition last year, earning the qualification to compete as a finalist in joinery at the WorldSkills Competition, after training and assessment.

“It typically takes five to six years to train a competitor in other countries or regions, but we only had about one year, which necessitated intensive training and precise planning,” Mr Fong’s instructor, Hong Kong Institute of Construction Supervising Instructor Terence Lam explained.

“Initially, Wesley struggled with some of the skills, leaving him frustrated. We needed to push him, even scold him, but sometimes he just needed a bit of encouragement. As Wesley was willing to spend time on weekends to practise, of course we wanted to help him.”

Facing challenges

The 19 joinery trade competitors were required to carry out the requested project within 22 hours over four days. They were given a sketch and asked to create a one-to-one drawing. Working from the drawing, the joiner would measure and cut joints then assemble, install, and finish a door with its frame to a high standard.

Even with adequate preparation, Mr Fong admitted that the road to success did not come easy.

“I made some mistakes in the drawing and felt a little discouraged on the first night of the competition,” he said.

Overcoming challenges: Wesley Fong represented Hong Kong to compete in joinery at the WorldSkills Competition and was awarded a medallion for excellence. Source from news.gov.hk

“The next day I made improvements, so I was able to make up for the mistakes and they did not affect me too much. When I saw the competitors next to me working so hard, I was inspired to raise my game.”

Mr Fong’s hard work paid off and he was awarded a medallion for excellence, an outcome he said he never anticipated. The final result has boosted his confidence and he is now determined to continue with a career in the construction industry.

Meanwhile, his instructor Mr Lam, who has been teaching for nearly 30 years, wishes to pass on his knowledge to his students and expressed hope for a sustainable industry.

Family skills

Ricky Chow, 22, also won a medallion for excellence at WorldSkills Lyon 2024 in welding - a skill taught to him by his father, which he was proud to showcase to the world.

Like Mr Fong, he made it on to the WorldSkills team after winning the Hong Kong Construction Industry Skills Competition last year.

The welding competitors had to complete four modules that involved working on carbon steel, a pressure vessel, aluminium and stainless steel within 18 hours. Mr Chow found welding the pressure vessel to be the most challenging task, as it required utilising all welding techniques to ensure it was watertight.

“Initially, most of my pressure vessels leaked, with only one or two being watertight. After practising for six months to a year, I gradually learnt the necessary techniques. Welding a pressure vessel is also physically demanding and time-consuming.”

Winning attitude: Hong Kong Institute of Construction Instructor Charles Li (right) attributes Mr Chow’s success to his perseverance. Source from news.gov.hk

But Mr Chow stayed focused and recalled his instructor’s advice to pull him through the tough moments of the competition.

“My instructor advised me to stick to my usual methods and once I completed all the modules, I would proceed to the stage where I could receive an award.”

Rigorous training

He missed out on the top three awards, but received a medallion for excellence. His instructor, Hong Kong Institute of Construction Instructor Charles Li attributed Mr Chow’s success to his perseverance.

“Despite training for only one year, compared to Ricky’s competitors from other places who trained for three to five years, he worked diligently. His schedule was demanding, training from 8am to 10pm, including weekends and public holidays.

“Ricky may not have been the most skilled of all the trainees, but he certainly was the most persistent. He was the only one to complete the training.”

Organised biennially by WorldSkills International, the WorldSkills Competition is the largest skills competition globally and hailed as the "Skills Olympics". This year, the Construction Industry Council sent seven competitors, with two winning medallions for excellence - achieving the best ever results by Hong Kong construction industry players.

Intensive training: Hong Kong Institute of Construction Supervising Instructor Terence Lam (left) says Mr Fong had far less time to train compared to his competitors. Source from news.gov.hk

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference

Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at the CUHK EMBA Annual Conference today (May 9):

Professor Dennis Lo (Vice-Chancellor and President, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)), Professor Lin Zhou (Dean, CUHK Business School), Macy (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Ms Macy Chan), Michael (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Mr Michael Chan), CUHK EMBA alumni and students, business leaders, distinguished guests and friends,

Good evening.

Addressing a room full of Executive MBA students and graduates is both an honour and a privilege. There is a particular kind of ambition in this room — one that is not content with success alone, but driven to understand it more deeply, in the belief that better ideas lead to greater impact.

That kind of commitment — to learning, to growth, to asking harder questions — is precisely what today's conversation is about.

The theme of this conference, which focuses on innovation and agile leadership, could not be more timely. Most of us here have lived through the Internet age and the smartphone revolution, which made communication faster and more seamless than anyone had imagined.

Today, the rise of AI places us at a more fundamental tipping point. Technology is not merely changing the answers — it is redefining the questions themselves.

Consider what is already within reach. An AI assistant can learn your preferences, curate a personalised shortlist, and simply ask for your confirmation. We should even ask whether the smartphone and the search engine will remain our primary gateways to the digital world, or whether something altogether new is already taking shape.

To draw an analogy, the power of technology does not lie in drawing the old map with greater precision. It lies in revealing how much of that map remains uncharted — and in showing us that entirely new maps, with new co-ordinates, are being drawn.

This redefinition is unfolding across three dimensions simultaneously.

First, the redefinition of products. Products are no longer discrete, standalone objects. A smart car is a vehicle, but also a mobile platform for data. An insurance policy can be a contract, but equally a dynamic reflection of health data. Innovation today is born from cross-sector convergence and continuous evolution.

Second, the redefinition of services. Services are no longer delivered solely by enterprises. They emerge from collaborative networks of people and AI. But the more profound shift is in what customers now expect. In the past, good service meant reaching the right person quickly. Today, customers expect a solution that anticipates their needs before articulating them. This requires a new architecture of service delivery: human and machine, with AI handling the scale, the speed, and the personalisation that no human team alone could sustain.

Third, and most importantly, the redefinition of business models. In the past, we sought optimal solutions within established frameworks — when demand rose, we expanded capacity; when service needs grew, we opened more branches. Technology invites us to break out of those frameworks entirely. Intelligent manufacturing means that "economies of scale" is no longer the only answer; flexible supply chains have made customised, on-demand production the new normal.

These three redefinitions are opening a commercial frontier unlike anything we have seen before. But if the benefits of technology accrue only to a small circle, its power remains fundamentally constrained. This brings me to the second message I want to leave with you today: inclusivity.

Inclusivity is not charity. Yet it is the smartest business strategy available. The unmet needs of the broader public represent the largest and most underserved market opportunity in existence. When you make quality healthcare, education and financial services accessible and affordable to ordinary residents, you are not serving a group in need of handouts — you are unlocking a vast market that traditional business models have consistently overlooked.

Hong Kong has a distinctive role to play here. We can be a co-architect of standards, a hub for capital, and a bridge between innovation and real-world deployment — from clinical validation of smart healthcare, to green technology financing, to regulatory sandboxes for fintech. Our contribution draws not only on institutional strengths and international networks, but on our genuine commitment to broad-based participation.

Yet inclusive products and services are only the first step. The deeper dimension is empowerment.

History reminds us that the dividends of technological revolution need to be actively guided to reach the many. In the age of steam, and again in the Internet era, early gains concentrated among capital owners and top-tier talent. But today we have the opportunity to write a different story. AI, as an amplifier of human capability, is already enabling what was previously unimaginable: a solo entrepreneur, with the right tools and the right vision, can build a unicorn.

In other words, the unit of competitive advantage is shifting — from the size of your team to the skill with which you orchestrate your tools.

Our mission should be to make that shift available to everyone. To turn individual readiness into collective prosperity, and to ensure that the productivity gains of AI flow broadly across the society.

This is precisely why, in this year's Budget, I placed such emphasis on the "AI Training for All" initiative.

We are not trying to turn everyone into an engineer. We are ensuring that workers, managers, SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) owners, and ordinary residents become capable collaborators with AI: people who can access it, use it effectively, and put it to work as their assistant.

That may sound ambitious, but consider this: if AI can one day be as intuitive as the smartphone, then mass adoption is not difficult to imagine at all. Just as computers once migrated from specialist facilities into offices and homes, AI will find its way into everyone's daily work and life.

For business leaders, it may be tempting to think of AI as "digital employee" that can replace existing workers. But think of a different framing: equipping your workforce with powerful digital assistants can achieve productivity gains, while also freeing your people to do what humans do best — create, imagine and innovate.

Companies that take those extra steps, and think those extra moves ahead, will find that an empowered workforce is also a more innovative one.

All in all, the power of technology must ultimately be measured by its contribution to inclusive growth. And inclusive growth, in the end, depends on, yes, commercial acumen — but also empathy, compassion, and the conviction that a rising tide should lift all boats. I can see that those qualities live in this room.

I will close with this thought. Someone once joked that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. With AI, let us never fall into the same trap — in our race to price every efficiency gain, let us not lose sight of the deeper value we are trying to create: a society where the fruits of innovation are broadly shared, and where technology lifts not just the fortunate few, but everyone willing to reach for it.

So here is my ask: let us grow the pie together. And make sure we cut it well.

Thank you very much.

Source: AI-found images

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Source: AI-found images