Candidates interested in applying for five civil service posts reminded to take part in Common Recruitment Examination and Basic Law and National Security Law Test
The Government announced today (July 18) that the next round of recruitment exercises for the posts of Administrative Officer (AO), Executive Officer II (EOII), Assistant Labour Officer II (ALOII), Assistant Trade Officer II (ATOII) and Management Services Officer II (MSOII) will begin in September 2025.
As part of the entry requirements, applicants for these posts will need to attain:
(a) Level 2 in the two language papers (Use of Chinese and Use of English) in the Common Recruitment Examination (CRE) or other results which are accepted as equivalent;
(b) a pass result in the Aptitude Test paper in the CRE; and
(c) a pass result in the Basic Law and National Security Law Test (BLNST) (Degree/Professional Grades).
Candidates who wish to apply for the posts mentioned above but have not attained the requisite results in CRE should apply through an online application system on the Civil Service Bureau (CSB)website from tomorrow (July 19) to August 1 to take the relevant paper(s) in the CRE tentatively scheduled to be held on September 27 in Hong Kong in order to be considered for appointment. Details and the online application system will be made available on the CSB website at www.csb.gov.hk/eng/cre.html during the application period.
With the launch of Digitalised BLNST (Degree/Professional Grades) this year, which accepts applications year-round, candidates who are interested in applying for the above vacancies but have not attained a pass result in the BLNST must separately apply for Digitalised BLNST (application details are available atwww.csb.gov.hk/eng/dblnst.html) and obtain a pass result before the specified date (i.e. November 29) in order to be considered for appointment.
Candidates located outside Hong Kong can still apply for the CRE and the BLNST (Degree/Professional Grades) tentatively scheduled to be held in Beijing, Shanghai, London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver and Sydney on November 29. Application details will be announced in September.
Students who are pursuing a bachelor's degree, or equivalent, and graduating in the years of 2025-26 or 2026-27 academic years are also eligible to apply for the posts and/or apply to take the CRE and the BLNST.
Details of the 2025-26 AO, EOII, ALOII, ATOII and MSOII recruitment exercises will also be announced in September.
Source: AI-found images
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
