The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government today hosted the Forging a National High-calibre Talent Hub Symposium, gathering about 150 representatives from the Mainland, Macau and Hong Kong.

At the symposium themed "Regional Collaboration, Empowerment through Science & Education, Global Talent Attraction", participants exchanged views on promoting regional collaborative ties on talent work and the strategic development of a national high-calibre talent hub.

The participants were from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong Province, the nine Mainland cities and four major co-operation platforms of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Macao Special Administrative Region, as well as 23 renowned universities on the Mainland and five of the world's top 100 universities in Hong Kong.

In his welcome remarks, Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki said education, technology and talent form the critical foundation for developing new quality productive forces and enhancing high-quality development.

He added that the Hong Kong SAR Government’s Committee on Education, Technology & Talents is targeting the manpower demand of Hong Kong's strategic positioning of the “eight centres” and co-ordinating the promotion of integrated development of education, technology and talent to build Hong Kong as an international hub for high-calibre talent.

The symposium featured keynote speeches and two thematic panel discussions.

Secretary for Labour & Welfare Chris Sun, together with government officials from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong Province joined the first discussion to explore ways to synergise regional strengths in building the talent hub. 

Mr Sun also witnessed Hong Kong Talent Engage Director Anthony Lau sign a Memorandum of Understanding with representatives from the Shenzhen Qianhai Cooperation Zone and Guangzhou Nansha District respectively, deepening collaboration in talent recruitment, services, employment and development between Hong Kong and the two regions.

In his closing remarks, the labour chief highlighted Hong Kong's various advantages in attracting global talent and the need to collaborate with different regions across the country through interdependence and mutual reinforcement, thereby accelerating the development of the national high-calibre talent hub.

He expects the symposium, together with the second Global Talent Summit · Hong Kong scheduled for early next year, would bring together valuable experiences from various regions in talent attraction, retention, nurturing and recruitment, to inject new impetus into high-quality development and achieve the vision of developing a national quality workforce.