BCBusiness

SEptEmBER 2018 BCBusiness 37 Beijing is just going to let Hong Kong wither on the vine," he says. "If you're really positive, you can look at developments that are taking place to con- nect Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Macau." Relishing his -irst day on the job, Derrick Lee falls into the second group. Lee, new managing director of the Brit- ish Columbia Trade and Invest- ment Representative Of-ice in Hong Kong, calls the city a gateway to China and ASEAN. He rattles oŠ its competitive advantages: the rule of law, freedom of speech, good trans- portation, a hands-oŠ govern- ment. B.C. exports to Hong Kong have grown about 30 per- cent over the past 10 years, says Lee, who was born there and grew up in Edmonton. After forestry products, food is the top commodity category. On display in Lee's small of-ice is a shelf crammed with B.C. eats, including Bremner's juices, Holy Crap cereal and Whistler Chocolate. "We have about 40-million- plus travellers from China com- ing to Hong Kong every year, to give them a sense of new tastes and new products," he says, noting that the province also has mainland rep o•ces in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. "Some- times Hong Kong can be a showcase." Lee, previously CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, invokes the Greater Bay Area, too. "When- ever we do promotion, it's about compa- nies coming here in a regional context," he says. "Hong Kong's going to have a larger base of consumers from China." TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE No one can accuse Hong Kong of setting the bar low. In her opening address for the Internet Economy Summit at the down- town Convention and Exhibition Centre, Carrie Lam, the territory's chief executive, explains that it's focusing on health tech, arti-icial intelligence, smart cities and —ntech. The plan is to create China's version of Silicon Valley, Lam says. That quartet -igures heavily in panel discussions at the IES and the Asia-Paci—c Business Forum, which feature guests from places like the U.S., India and Israel. Among the IES speakers is Xu Bing, co-founder of SenseTime Group, which launched at Hong Kong Science Park in 2014. Backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and oth- ers, the Beijing-based unicorn was worth some US$4.5 billion as of June, according to Bloom- berg, making it the world's most valuable AI startup. One customer is the Chinese govern- ment, which uses SenseTime's facial recognition software for its vast surveillance network. Hong Kong was home to some 2,300 startups in 2017, up 16 percent from the previ- ous year, says chief informa- tion o•cer Yeung. Digital hub Cyberport's on-site and oŠ-site community consists of more than 1,000 multinationals, small and medium-sized com- panies, and startups. About one-third of the latter are for- eign, including several with Canadian roots. The government, which is investing HK$300 million (about $50 million) in Cyberport this year, supports business much more than it did 20 years ago, Yeung says. "If we look back, a lot of Hong Kong peo- ple are actually more transac- tional. They look for short-term returns," he adds. "For long- term returns like technolo©y, we need to take a longer-range view in order to see the return. And without the government's participation, it would be very di•cult to leave it entirely to the private market." As a leading -inancial centre, the territory has plenty of fundraising capacity, says Lee George Lam, chair of Cyberport Management Co. "Therefore, in Hong Kong we can kill two birds with one stone. You can use Hong Kong to improve access to —nancing, and you can also make use of Hong Kong to harness the power of innovation and technolo©y." High salaries can make it a tough place to run a startup, Totem Media's Baker maintains. However, he says, the authori- ties are drawing attention to three local subsectors where would-be investors have pro—ted: —nancial, property-related and patentable technolo©y, the latter including hardware. "In terms of —nancing, I think if you're in one of those three areas, it would make sense to look at Hong Kong." WHO OWNS HONG KONG For my last day in town, there's a helicopter tour of the area. Clearing the downtown waterfront on a sunny after- noon, we f loat above huge banks of apartment blocks jutting from lush hillsides and turquoise bays. Suddenly it's Shenzhen, a forest of gleam- ing highrises—incongruously f lanked by the marshes of the Mai Po Nature Reserve— that makes the typical North American city look like a trailer park. On the way back we pass the nearly completed bridge to the mainland, a reminder that Hong Kong is part of China now, for good. Restaurateur Thomas Lau admits that he and his wife often discuss moving back to Vancouver. But they don't see it happening soon, given that he can't run his business remotely. "We talk about it every day, and we shoot it down every day," Lau says with a laugh. If he and his family do decide to leave, the political situation will play a big role, he admits. "We're losing our freedom of speech with the amount of control that China is giving us," Lau says. To him, the mainland Chinese who move to Hong Kong are diŠerent from those who head to Canada. "They think they own Hong Kong," he says. "The ones who go to Canada, they appreciate the Canadian way of living, so they will try to adapt." For Lau, the country where he spent much of his childhood is more than a Plan B. "I love Canada," he says. "I always ask myself a question: If I had to represent a soccer team at the World Cup, would it be Canada or Hong Kong? I would represent Canada." ¬ SOURCE: BC StAtS No. 14 Where Hong Kong ranked as a destination for B.C.-origin exports in 2017, when it ac- counted for 0.5% of the province's com- modity exports No. 3 B.C.'s rank among the provinces and territories as an exporter to Hong Kong that year, after Ontario and Quebec 11.3% B.C.'s share of Canada's $1.95 billion worth of exports to Hong Kong in 2017 ° ° ° ° ° °

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