Hong Kong is developing as a knowledge-based economy, with the number of researchers per 1,000 people in the labour force growing from 2.08 in 1998 to 5.39 in 2007, the Census & Statistics Department says.

Its latest Monthly Digest of Statistics edition issued today said the number of researchers increased from 6,819 to 19,553.

The ratio of gross domestic expenditure on research and development to Gross Domestic Product grew from 0.43% to 0.77%. The share of business in the total research and development expenditure rose from 28.5% to 48.8%.

The proportion of business establishments which had undertaken one or more types of innovation activities rose from 16% in 2001 to 42.2% in 2007. The proportion of business establishments having used personal computers grew from 51.5% in 2000 to 63.1% in 2008.

About 58.8% of all business establishments had an Internet connection in 2008, up 21.5 percentage points on 2000. The percentage of business establishments with webpages or websites also rose from 7.3% to 19.3%.