34 BCBusiness SEptEmBER 2018 tANYA gOEhRINg
explains. "It's a very fast-moving market,
and also it's a very accepting market," Lau
says. "People will accept a lot of new ideas."
I'm not just here for the beer. This visit
is courtesy of the Hong Kong government,
which is hosting the Asia-Paci'c Business
Forum
(APBF) and the Internet Economy
Summit
(IES). Presenting the APBF: public
agency Hong Kong Cyberport Manage-
ment Co., the government's Innovation and
Technolo§y Bureau and the United Nations'
Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Paci'c
(ESCAP). Many of its sessions
explore how the private sector can help
reach the UN's 17 Sustainable Development
Goals for 2030.
Meanwhile, the
IES is part of Hong
Kong's e¨orts to establish itself as an Asian
tech hub. "In Hong Kong, we are looking
at how to improve our own competitive-
ness and also grow our economy through
the use of technolo§y and innovation,"
says Allen Yeung, the government's chief
information o–cer, when I meet him at
Cyberport, a sprawling o–ce, retail and
incubator space in picturesque Telegraph
Bay on southwest Hong Kong Island.
With Macau, China's other
SAR, Hong
Kong is now part of the proposed Greater
Bay Area, a region of 70 million people that
includes nine cities in neighbouring Guang-
dong province. It also wants to help with
the Belt and Road Initiative (
BRI), China's
ambitious plan to build land and maritime
trade routes linking it to 60 other countries.
For Yeung, that means deploying Hong
Kong's fat Internet pipeline, which far out-
strips the mainland's, for what's known
as the Digital Silk Road. The city "can be a
very important player as a digital connector
between Hong Kong and the wider Belt and
Road countries," he says.
Joining the Greater Bay Area comes with
two physical links to the mainland: the Hong
Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, a 55-kilometre
bridge and tunnel system; and a high-speed
rail network that puts Shenzhen and its
12.5 million residents just 15 minutes away.
Both are scheduled for completion this year.
RED FLAGS
You don't have to look far for proof of B.C.'s
presence in Hong Kong. Close to my down-
town hotel, I pass an outpost of White Spot's
Triple O's burger chain. In the mall at the
International Finance Centre, outdoor
clothing maker Arc'teryx Equipment has a
brand store—one of many throughout Asia.
"We have a global consumer that travels
the world in search of adventure and expe-
riences, and Hong Kong is an important epi-
centre market for our brand," says Megan
Cheesbrough, the North Vancouver–based
company's VP retail.
Then there are the eerie geographi-
cal parallels between Hong Kong and
scaling up
vancouverite steve
Johansen found an
appetite for his company's
seafood overseas
