Hong Kong stands ready to welcome more entrepreneurs seeking to base their ventures in the city with its seamless cross-border business conditions, rich reservoir of international talent, and first-rate innovation and incubation ecosystem.

The remarks were made by the special administrative region’s talent-attraction head and a lawmaker for the technology and innovation sector on Thursday, at a dialogue session of the Belt and Road Summit.

Supported by Hong Kong Talent Engage (HKTE) – a government body for wooing professionals, the session was joined by international recruits and homegrown technology entrepreneurs to shed a light on Hong Kong’s credentials as an international hub for high-caliber talent.

The city’s strength in forging future global business leaders and standing as a global talent powerhouse carry strategic weight, said the panel chair, Hong Kong legislator Duncan Chiu Tat-kun, at a time when technological innovation is racing ahead, and the business landscape is rapidly being remade.

HKTE’s Director Felix Chan Hoi-king, talking about talent recruitment, said Hong Kong holds “unique advantages” in attracting entrepreneurs worldwide as it’s a place that can plug into national and global resources at the same time.

He added that Chinese mainland companies hope to establish offices in the city and bring in overseas engineers to expand abroad, while many international entrepreneurs seek to use Hong Kong to tap into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the wider mainland, as well as Asia.

Chan said that whereas the outside world once regarded Hong Kong mostly as a financial and trading powerhouse, an increasing number of young professionals worldwide are drawn by innovation and technology opportunities in the city.

For instance, Chan said that power engineers, artificial intelligence scientists, AI specialists, and professionals who move across industries with the skills to harness AI are now in high demand amid Hong Kong’s AI boom.

At the session, startup founders based in the city opened up about the main attractions that have kept them in Hong Kong as their ventures grow.

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Camroo Ahmed, CEO of Braillic Ltd, a medical technology startup, recalled how his entrepreneurial ambitions took root while he was studying in the city: “When I started to dream big, I got support from my university and the government. The city’s an amazing place to start.”

Support for entrepreneurs ranges from incubation and funding programs at Hong Kong Cyberport and Hong Kong Science Park to those offered by the official Innovation and Technology Commission.

In recent years, the SAR government has invested HK$10 billion ($1.28 billion) in the Research, Academic and Industry Sectors One-plus Scheme, or RAISe+, which helps universities turn research into viable business concerns with grants of up to HK$100 million per project.

Universities have also set up their own funds for faculty and student startups.

Sheldon Li, co-founder and CEO of Buyandship, a cross-border e-commerce platform, said that for startups, Hong Kong keeps cross-border costs low — which suits Asia-wide business — and offers a deep bench of angel and seed investors.

Jojo Xu Huafeng, Co-founder and CEO of Libpet Tech Limited, a robotics engineering and smart mobility venture, said that Hong Kong is ideally placed to open doors to European and American markets and talent from those regions as well as to the Greater Bay Area’s advanced manufacturing capacity for fast production.

Panelists discussed the existing pain points in Hong Kong’s entrepreneur ecosystem and proposed suggestions for improvements.

They said that government funding approval remains time consuming, and urged simpler, swifter processes; they also expressed the hope that government agencies will increase engagement with startups, trialing products and jointly exploring paths to market.

Li said there is insufficient supply of growth-stage capital and called for more investment.

Chiu said that he will look at how the government can better support growth-stage companies, likely with dedicated funding.

Contact the writer at wanqing@chinadailyhk.com