HK retains competitive edge despite pandemic

Noy Elram, managing director of Sarine APAC at Sarine Technology, a diamond technology company based in Israel, experienced difficulty in recruiting staff members when the company expanded its regional headquarters in Hong Kong last year.

"We interviewed around 50 candidates over a period of six months for one position, and we couldn't travel out of Hong Kong because of the COVID-19 restrictions," he said. Elram added that the company turned to digital solutions to interact with its teams and customers in various locations.

Such problems failed to halt the company expanding the Hong Kong headquarters as its base in the Asia Pacific region.

"Hong Kong is a global commercial hub, business-friendly, cosmopolitan, and has excellent infrastructure, financial and professional services. It is also close to our Asia-Pacific teams' major target markets," Elram added.

"The group is expanding its Hong Kong team to leverage the city's advantageous position within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

"This area has already become one of the world's biggest jewelry production bases, and trade collection and distribution centers. We see great potential in the industry and hope to partner with more diamond jewelry retailers in the Greater Bay Area via the Hong Kong office."

The company has established links in the area with jewelry brand Chow Tai Fook, key gem laboratories such as the Shenzhen Laboratory of National Gemstone Testing Centre, and several diamond manufacturers.

Maggie Hu, an assistant professor of real estate and finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said, "Hong Kong can further improve its competitiveness by strategically forming an alliance and liaising with partners in the Greater Bay Area to attract more international businesses and to incubate startups with great prospects."

Hu said the Greater Bay Area also provides the capital market and a large pool of talent for Hong Kong to develop the technology sector－a main driving force for economic growth.

She added that the innovative nature of startups and the originality of their technologies can potentially attract international praise and recognition－helping promote the international business environment in Hong Kong.

Hu said an international hub typically has a strategic geographic location, stable legal system, favorable business environment, and a large pool of local and international talent.

Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic and the business slump it has brought, Hong Kong has maintained its competitiveness on all fronts, she added.

According to InvestHK, the city is home to more than 3,700 startups by the end of last year, and the founders of about 30 percent of them are from outside Hong Kong.

Venture capital investment in the city surged from $1.24 billion in 2014 to about $41.7 billion last year. Moreover, for biotechnology, the city is Asia's largest and the world's second-largest fundraising hub.