Chief Executive John Lee today met United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Director General Gerd Muller at the Central Government Officers, during which they exchanged views on strengthening co-operation in industrial development and witnessed the signing of a joint statement on collaboration.

Deputy Commissioner of the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Li Yongsheng, also attended the meeting.

The joint statement was signed by Secretary for Innovation, Technology & Industry Prof Sun Dong, and Deputy to the Director General of UNIDO and Managing Director of the Directorate of Technical Co-operation & Sustainable Industrial Development Zou Ciyong.

It aims to establish a co-operative framework to strengthen collaboration, information sharing and exchange of best practices to advance industrial innovation, technology transfers and capacity development, including the exploration of the joint development of a centre of excellence on global advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence (AI) in Hong Kong.

At the meeting, the Chief Executive welcomed Mr Muller's delegation to visit Hong Kong, noting that the National 15th Five-Year Plan clearly supports Hong Kong to develop into an international innovation and technology (I&T) centre. Hong Kong enjoys the advantage of connecting the Mainland and the world under the “one country, two systems” principle, and is accelerating its development into an international I&T centre.

Mr Lee added that with the signing of the joint statement, the Hong Kong SAR Government and UNIDO will strengthen collaboration to jointly promote development including industrial innovation and technology transfers.

He also remarked that both sides will also seize opportunities in the new round of the technological revolution to accelerate high-quality industrial development and transformation, and further leverage the city’s role as a “super connector” and a “super value-adder” to attract enterprises from the Chinese Mainland and overseas to expand businesses in Hong Kong, promote new industrialisation, and cultivate and strengthen new quality productive forces.

Prof Sun supplemented Hong Kong looks forward to a closer collaboration with UNIDO under the joint statement to share best practices on advanced manufacturing, AI applications and digital transformation; encourage multi-stakeholder dialogue on technology trends and experiences; as well as explore avenues of co-operation in innovation, knowledge transfer and skills development.