Report
JETRO Co-Hosts Online Event with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks

Attachment(174KB)

On December 2, JETRO co-hosted an online event with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), which operates innovation facilities set up by the Hong Kong government, through the online event tool REMO. During the event, startups from Hong Kong in the food tech and life sciences fields gave pitches and held individual business meetings. About 70 people from Japanese companies based in both Japan and Hong Kong attended the event.

To start the event, Ms. Lydia Poon, who is the Assistant Manager of the Biomedical Tech Cluster at HKSTP, gave a presentation on Hong Kong's ecosystem for startups and R&D activities in the life sciences field.

7 Hong Kong startups aiming to enter the Japanese market or conduct open innovation with Japanese companies gave pitches to promote their unique technologies and ideas in the fields of food tech and life sciences (see attached table).

The pitches revealed the needs for partnership in areas such as “joint development in the Japanese market and joint establishment of new companies,” “entry into the Japanese market,” and “joint branding, business alliances and strategic investment opportunities with Japanese companies.”

Individual business meetings were held after the event until December 9. Japanese companies were able to book meetings with the Hong Kong startups through the Calendly website, which offers a scheduling function.

According to the GLOBAL INNOVATION INDEX (GII) 2020 released on September 2 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Cornell University in the U.S., and the French graduate business school INSEAD, Hong Kong is ranked 11th out of 131 countries and regions in terms of technological innovation capability, with China ranked 14th and Japan 16th.

Many Hong Kong startups have been emerging in the food tech and life sciences fields such as one of the startups participated in this event, Avant Meat, who are researching and developing cultivated meat, and Green Monday, who are producing meat substitutes for pork. There are high expectations for the future development of these industries.

About Hong Kong Science Park:

Of the more than 800 high-tech companies that have moved into the Hong Kong Science Park incubation facility, over 300 are startups. The park provides financial support, network building, and research facilities to help foster R&D-oriented companies.

(Karen Kwan, JETRO Hong Kong)

* The original article in Japanese