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. **

The move by the Central Government to reprimand the US Consul General in Hong Kong over her interpretation of a recent amendment to National Security Law (NSL) is necessary to correct a misconception that the city is not a safe place to travel.

Last month, Hong Kong’s legislature passed laws empowering the police to demand suspects of a crime to reveal the passwords to their mobile phones and other electronic devices.

But the newly appointed US Consul General Hong Kong Julie Eadeh went a step further and issued a travel advisory warning all Americans that they could be arrested if they failed to release their passwords. She insinuated that Hong Kong is a police state. It is not! In fact, it is one of the safest places in the world to travel.

A government spokesman was quick to respond to erroneous press reports after the legislative motion that under normal circumstances, police officers must have reasonable grounds to suspect that an electronic equipment may contain evidence of an offence endangering national security, and they must apply for a warrant and obtain authorisation from a magistrate before they can search the electronic equipment to obtain relevant criminal evidence in accordance with the warrant. 

Only after being legally authorised to search the equipment can the police require a suspect to provide the password or decryption method of the equipment. Therefore, it is not until legal authorisation to search an electronic equipment has been obtained can the police really require a suspect to provide the password or decryption method of the electronic equipment. 

The spokesman added that there is no case that the police can randomly ask ordinary citizens on the street for their electronic devices (such as their mobile phones) and their password. 

The Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection agency, which placed Hong Kong 10th as one of the world’s safest places to travel last year, advised travellers to read the US State Department’s travel advisories which currently advises travellers to exercise caution in Hong Kong due to the “arbitrary enforcement of local laws and ongoing restrictions on civil liberties” following the enactment of the National Security Law and the 2024 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. US citizens are also encouraged to avoid demonstrations, protests and large gathering, as “even peaceful events can escalate and lead to legal consequences.” 

The commissioner of China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong, Cui Jianchun, gave Eadeh a slap over the wrist and expressed strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition, urging the US to immediately cease interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs in any form. 

Of the 70-consular corps in Hong Kong, the US was the only one to purposely misinterpret the amendment to the NSL. It is in the DNA of the US. All other foreign diplomats know exactly what it means because the same proviso applies to their own countries.

Eadeh is a career diplomat having served in Ankara, Doha, Bagdad, Shanghai, Riyadh and Beirut. In Hong Kong she was the consulate’s political director under Gregory May, who has been promoted to US Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing.

Unlike other consulates in Hong Kong which answer to their embassies in Beijing, the US Consulate General in Hong Kong answers directly to the US State Department run by China hawk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been quiet on China issues recently due to his distraction in the Middle East.

The US is not in a position to criticise Hong Kong at the moment as it has lost all credibility as a sovereign state. It is a broken country, ostracized by the world’s powers as they scramble to mend the fences dismantled by President Trump and his cronies.

Commissioner Cui will be keeping a watchful eye on Eadeh as she steps her way through Hong Kong, its flooring still holding the shards of broken glass from the 2019-20 riots in which she was complicit. Cui will continue to reprimand her for every indiscretion she makes.