FHKI 60th Anniversary Commemorative Album

and technology, such as implementing measures to attract talents and exploration of new markets. The Government should also step up to foster more cross-sectoral and horizontal collaborations to generate opportunities for creative and tech industries. It should also formulate longer-term industrial policies so that supports given to identified new industries will be consistent and sufficient,” said Mr Jason Chiu. Against the backdrop of Industry 4.0, industrial partnership between traditional and emerging industries will be mutually beneficial: traditional industries possess valuable experience of trial production and extensive networks of reliable partners, while they can benefit from the novel technology platforms and solutions offered by new industries to accelerate the pace of upgrading. As for startups, they need market validation and product-market fit more than financing. When potential market demand for the new product is proved, investors will come. It is validation before valuation. Therefore, startups should know their own expertise well and ensure their products or services can effectively solve problems. Startups should not simply follow trends or chase after capital because eventually they will lose the direction of the development of their company. Innovative technologies have brought disruptive changes to consumers’ buying habits and enterprises’ retail formats. Nowadays O2O, AR/VR and electronic wallet have become very popular worldwide. The increasingly wide application of IoT, cloud and 5G technologies will accelerate the development of smart cities. The usage of the enormous consumption data will encourage enterprises to use data analytics to attain data-driven sales models. In particular, the development of 5G technology will significantly lower the threshold of applying high technology to daily life such as autonomous vehicles, remote control mechanics and operations, and critical missions because of 5G’s shorter time lag and higher bandwidth frequency. It is foreseeable that the wider use of 5G in future will bring another round of new disruptive changes to consumer buying preference and habits. Hong Kong, being a city with a truly east-meet-west culture plus its export-oriented economy, has made it ideal for being the testing ground of new innovative products and services before selling to international markets. Hong Kong’s sound financial infrastructure and adoption of international standards are favourable factors luring tech companies and professional investors. The high standing of Hong Kong’s higher education institutes and research institutes is also in the territory’s favour. “However, more should be done at the Government level to enhance the capability of local companies to adopt innovation Federation of Hong Kong Industries 60 th Anniversary Commemorative Album 63