Secretary for Innovation & Technology Alfred Sit inspected the MARS Centre at Tai Po InnoPark today and visited three enterprises located in the centre.

The goal of the inspection was to ascertain how the integration of advanced manufacturing and scientific research capabilities speeds up local research and development (R&D) and the manufacturing process, which in turn increases the local supplies of personal protection equipment and medical diagnostic systems.

The three enterprises Mr Sit visited focus on developing next-generation magnetic resonance imaging, innovative and automated multiple point-of-care diagnostic systems for detecting infectious respiratory diseases and the manufacture of face masks.

Two of them have received support from funding programmes administered by the Innovation & Technology (I&T) Commission that helped to turn their R&D outcomes into products and start their production lines in Hong Kong.

In view of the surging demand for anti-epidemic items under the epidemic, Mr Sit noted that the Government refurbished an industrial building at Tai Po InnoPark as the MARS Centre to offer a high-specification fully-serviced production base for medical supplies.

He lauded the MARS Centre, commissioned in late 2021, for having a high occupancy rate of 96%.

Mr Sit said: “Ten local and international enterprises focusing on medical goods and production of relevant products and services are expected to move in by the middle of this year.

“It is conducive to driving re-industrialisation with innovation and technology and assisting in the anti-epidemic work in Hong Kong.”

The Government is committed to promoting re-industrialisation and fostering I&T application and smart production in recent years to attract more high value-added and technology-intensive manufacturing process and production lines to set up operations in the city to enhance the I&T ecosystem, he added.