The Global Innovation Index (GII) recently released by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) shows that the Shenzhen-Hong Kong area has the second-highest innovation index among global innovation clusters, meaning the area’s ability to innovate has surpassed Silicon Valley, according to southcn.com.
The Tokyo-Yokohama area in Japan ranked the first, according to the GII.
Many experts believe that high-tech companies in Shenzhen, such as Huawei, ZTE and Tencent, have played a significant role in promoting the growth of the city’s innovativeness.
Statistics provided by WIPO showed that ZTE had filed 4,123 PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) applications last year, more than any other company worldwide. ZTE was followed by Huawei with 3,692 applications and Qualcomm with 2,466 applications, while Mitsubishi Electric and LG were in the fourth and fifth places, respectively.
Qu Jian, deputy head of China Development Institute (CDI), said the Shenzhen-Hong Kong area has its own strengths in several ways, such as the lower cost of innovation and the well-developed industrial and product trading systems as well as a capital market that supports the development of technology and industry chains.
DJI is a good example of the innovative interaction between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The company’s founder, Wang Tao, started his own business in Shenzhen after graduating from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2006. The company’s sales reached 10 billion yuan (US$1.47 billion) last year, and it has dominated the global consumer drone market by occupying 70 percent of the market share, according to the report.
Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovation Circle is a funding program jointly launched by the Shenzhen and Hong Kong governments and has so far subsidized 77 Shenzhen-Hong Kong cooperation projects.
“Shenzhen and Hong Kong have outpaced San Francisco Bay Area in terms of patent applications, but key factors in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area don’t have as frequent internal interactions as they do in the San Francisco Bay Area, which we should pay attention to,” said Zhou Qiren, a professor from Peking University, during the 1st Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Forum on Tuesday.
Fan Gang, president of CDI, said many financial centers in the world are transforming into FinTech centers, while another trend is a single metropolis changing into a metropolis cluster. He said Hong Kong and Shenzhen should make good use of their financial and technological strengths for further integration.
However, Shenzhen has become an expensive city to live in. According to a survey report released by William Mercer, a New York-based human resource consulting agency, Shenzhen has the 13th-highest cost of living in the world. (Source: Shenzhen Daily)
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