By embracing collaborative opportunities, Hong Kong and Guangdong can jointly take up overseas IT projects and achieve mutual economic benefits, Government Chief Information Officer Alan Wong says.

More than 400 industry players and practitioners in the field from the two places attended the Pearl River Delta Software Industry Forum in Zhuhai today.

Mr Wong said enhancing co-operation with the Mainland -Pearl River Delta cities in particular - is a priority under the 2004 Digital 21 Strategy published in March.

"Hong Kong enterprises have international horizons, rich business knowledge and sound project management experience, while the Mainland has abundant human resources, technical strength and a large merchandise and service market," he said.

Second phase of CEPA opens up new opportunities

With the inclusion of IT services as one of the trade liberalisation service areas, the second phase of the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement announced in August opened up new business and collaboration opportunities for the IT industries in the two places.

The Commerce, Industry & Technology Bureau and the Guangdong Information Industry Department jointly organised the event.

Under the theme "New Opportunities for Co-operation in the software industry of Hong Kong and Guangdong under CEPA", government officials and industry players from the two places exchanged views to strengthen co-operation in IT development, particularly in such areas as Radio Frequency Identification, software and IT services outsourcing, games software and Linux applications.