Education is the fastest growing industry in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is on course to be the scholastic hub of Asia as the government rolls out new incentives to lure talent to the city on the wave of academic excellence. Yes, education has become the fastest growing industry in Hong Kong.

Last year Chief Executive John Lee announced in his annual policy address the setting up of a committee on Education, Technology and Talent to promote Hong Kong as an international hub for high calibre talent. And he is expected to elaborate on this in his annual address in September. Hong Kong, he said can expect a shortage of about 180,000 workers over the next five years and to develop a quality talent pool, we will implement reforms to different aspects of the talent admission regime.

Hong Kong boasts 54 international schools, providing different non-local curricula, including those of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the International Baccalaureate program.

Also, world-class institutes such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, the Asia Society, and HKU-Pasteur Research Pole (France) have established their bases in Hong Kong.

As Hong Kong is an international city, besides preparing local students for the future, it also offers golden opportunities for international students, especially those pursuing a high-tech career with international AI institutions in neighbouring Shenzhen.

Last year, about 73,700 non-local student from more than 100 countries/regions came to study post-secondary programmes in Hong Kong and another 5,100 students entered Hong Kong on exchange programs.

And US President Donald Trump’s savage crackdown on Harvard and other universities is being viewed as an opportunity to lure top students and research talent to the city. Early results are promising. Hong Kong's eight publicly funded universities have received 850 transfer inquiries from students affected by the new US policies and have extended at least 36 formal offers in the past couple of months.

Already Hong Kong is on the road to achieving its goal of being a world tertiary centre as it is the only city with five universities in the world's top 100 ranking and is fourth globally for education competitiveness.

The government is attaching so much importance to the future of Hong Kong this year that it is allocating some 17.5 per cent of its budget, or HK$102.86 billion to education.

To fully leverage the distinctive advantages of the post-secondary education sector in Hong Kong, and to press ahead with the development of Hong Kong as an international education hub, the Government is taking forward a series of measures to attract more outstanding talents to study and conduct research in Hong Kong. These include raising the enrolment ceiling of non-local students for publicly funded post-secondary institutions, increasing the quotas of the Belt and Road Scholarship and the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme, launching the Research Matching Grant Scheme to encourage more organizations to fund institutional research activities, increasing much needed hostel places, temporarily exempting non local postgraduate students and full-time non-local graduate students from restrictions on taking up part-time jobs, allowing non-local students to stay in Hong Kong without conditions for 24 months after graduation, and developing the Northern Metropolis University Town.

These efforts aim to promote the "Study in Hong Kong" brand, enhancing Hong Kong's competitiveness and contributing to national strategies focused on talent cultivation and innovation.

The plan includes the development of post-secondary education in the Northern Metropolis (a large swath of land straddling the boundary between Hong Kong and Shenzhen) and striving to develop the Northern Metropolis University Town where local post-secondary institutions are encouraged to introduce more branded programs, research collaboration and exchange projects with renowned mainland and overseas institutions.

To kickstart the project, the government has already designated about five hectares of land for a self-financing institution to construct its new campus in Hung Shui Kiu, neighbouring Yuen Long. Site formation works are expected to be completed by next year, following which eligible institutions will be invited to submit proposals for development.

Those studying in Hong Kong will gain access to tech hubs, manufacturing bases, and the vast talent networks in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area that will provide graduates with superior career opportunities while accelerating research commercialization.
Associate vice president of Lingnan University and a Hong Kong legislator, Prof. Lau Chi- pang, summed it up nicely: "Once universities produce unicorn startups, their competitiveness will go beyond rankings and solidify their role as true innovation engines."

Mark Pinkstone

** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **

As Hong Kong has been developing in leaps and bounds, so has its medical services increased to meet local demands.

And with planned new hospitals in the Northern Metropolis along with current expansion and construction development, expertise is expected to increase and the dreaded waiting times for patients will be considerably reduced.

Hong Kong is poised to be the medical centre of Asia.

Currently, Hong Kong has about 36,000 beds in 43 public hospitals and 14 private hospitals. And already they are overcrowded, aided undoubtedly by an increasing aging population. Patients have to wait up to two hours for a consultation in public hospitals and up to a year or more for onward specialised bookings for appointment.

But that is about to change. Opening on December 11 in Tseung Kwan O will be the 400-bed Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong run by the Baptist University under the umbrella of the Health Bureau of the government and not to be confused with the Hospital Authority which runs all public hospitals and clinics in Hong Kong.

This is a major breakthrough for Chinese medicine (CM) to be fully integrated with research into western-Chinese medicines while serving the community. It will be the flagship for the 18 Chinese medicine clinics already operating in all districts in Hong Kong.

In its first year of operation, it will provide only outpatient 25 beds and day-patient services and six specialised CM services – internal medicine, external medicine, gynaecology, paediatrics, orthopaedics and traumatology, and acupuncture and moxibustion. It will also provide 12 special disease programs including those for elderly degenerative diseases and stroke rehabilitation.

Inpatient services will start from late next year, with other services expanding year by year, including the remaining 11 special disease programs. It is expected that by the end of 2030, the hospital will provide full inpatient services with its 400 patient beds, as well as outpatient services of 400 000 annual attendances.

Construction is also well underway and above the foundations for the North District Hospital (NDH) extension in Sheung Shui. The expansion of NDH mainly covers the construction of a new hospital block, refurbishment, alteration and addition to existing hospital building, and the provision of associated internal roadworks as well as external and landscaping works. Upon completion of the expansion project in about 2028, the hospital will provide about 1,500 additional beds, atop of its 680 existing beds.

And then comes the mother of all hospitals: The Northern Metropolis Hospital in Ngau Tam Mei, south of Yuen Long, is developing a new integrated medical teaching and research hospital which will become the flagship hospital of the Northern Metropolis with about 3 000 beds, providing comprehensive healthcare services for the new population in the area.

Last year in his policy address, the Chief Executive John Lee announced plans for developing a new integrated medical teaching and research hospital which will become the flagship hospital of the Northern Metropolis, providing comprehensive healthcare services.

The area is a goldmine for development. Representing about one third of Hong Kong’s total land area, existing agricultural land and fishponds will be turned into a massive hub for international scientific and technical research and development.

In the First Hospital Development Plan, there are three projects in two clusters, including the expansion of North District Hospital, the redevelopment of Prince of Wales Hospital, and the extension of Operating Theatre Block for Tuen Mun Hospital. It is anticipated that a total of 1 950 additional beds and other hospital facilities will be provided by 2031 in the New Territories after the completion of the three projects, bringing the physical bed capacity in the east and west clusters in the New Territories to about 12 000 beds.

Most importantly on the backburner is a decision by the Chief Executive in Council (ExCo) last year that a site of about two hectares be reserved in the San Tin Technopole (between Yuen Long and Sheung Shui) for healthcare facilities “which may include private hospital use.”

A private hospital in the New Territories opens up many possibilities, including medical tourism.
The Chinese medical hospital will draw in many tourists from the mainland and Asia seeking medical help through traditional Chinese and western medicine methods. A tourism hospital situated along the Chinese boundary will boost tourism figures ten-fold.

A case in point is the Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. It is a classic example of how the private sector can benefit in healthcare. Founded in 1980, Bumrungrad International Hospital has been a global pioneer in providing world-class healthcare services and international patient support for nearly four decades. The hospital is an internationally accredited, multi-specialty hospital listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand since 1989. It is, perhaps the largest private hospital in Southeast Asia, caring for more than 1.1 million patients annually from more than 190 countries.