Vincent Tang, associate director-general of Investment Promotion of InvestHK Photo: Yin Yeping/GT

Investment from the Chinese mainland has been an important source for driving the economy and employment in Hong Kong, and the city looks for further support from the mainland in technology to help build itself into an innovative hub, an official of the local investment and promotion authority told the Global Times.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has 9,000 companies from the mainland and other overseas markets, among which mainland companies account for the largest share, Vincent Tang, associate director-general of Investment Promotion of InvestHK, told the Global Times on the sidelines of the China Overseas Investment Fair in Beijing on Thursday. 

Institutions from the mainland have created massive job opportunities in the HKSAR, representing 40 percent of the 600,000 openings that are created by cross-border companies, Tang said, taking the example of mainland banks, such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. "We want to encourage mainland high-technology companies, such as big data and big health companies, to come to Hong Kong for investment, research and development."

"They have an edge in research and development (R&D), which is even more advanced than in many Western companies and Hong Kong companies," Tang said. 

He noted that R&D is an important pillar of Hong Kong's development. With the support and collaboration of the mainland, Hong Kong can be developed into a city of innovation and creativity.

Hong Kong has doubled R&D expenditure to HK$45 billion ($5.7 billion) for the next five years to boost smart city innovation, a bold target set by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, the South China Morning Post reported on October 11.

Tang said that there has been some negative impact of the unrest on the local economy, but that has not shaken the city's edge in employment and openness. 

The Hong Kong economy contracted by 2.9 percent in the third quarter of 2019 from a year earlier, representing an abrupt deterioration from its mild growth of 0.4 percent in the preceding quarter, according to the third-quarter economic report for 2019 by the HKSAR on November 15. The report suggested that the local social incidents took a heavy toll on consumption- and tourism-related sectors, dealing a very severe blow to the economy.