GOVT DRIVEN TO NURTURE LOCAL TALENT

The Government will provide subsidies of up to $300,000 for each publicly-funded primary school in the next two academic years to enhance primary school students’ interests in information technology and its applications, as it strives to nurture local talent in various fronts.

Announcing the initiative in his Budget, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said apart from supporting post-secondary institutions to enhance their quality and expand their capacity, the Government will continue to take forward a number of sector-specific talent training programmes to enrich the local talent pool.

In connection with the Government’s “Knowing More About IT” Programme, Mr Chan proposed to allocate an additional funding of $134 million to provide a subsidy of up to $300,000 for each publicly-funded primary school in the next two academic years.

The programme was launched to enhance primary school students’ interests in information technology and its applications, so as to better prepare Hong Kong for integration into the knowledge-based economy and development of a digital society.

Another initiative is to allocate an additional funding of about $12 million in total to the Intellectual Property Department over the next three years in an effort to prepare for the introduction of regulatory arrangements for local patent agent services. 

Mr Chan said: “Our aim is to enhance the professionalism and support the development of the original grant patent system. 

“The Government will also continue to strengthen and enlarge its patent examiner team and enhance its substantive examination capability, with a view to acquiring institutional autonomy in conducting substantive patent examination in 2030.”

Giving an update of the Chinese Medicine Development Fund, Mr Chan said a number of capacity building initiatives for the healthcare industry have been taken forward under the fund, since an injection of $500 million in additional funding was announced in last year’s Budget.

One such initiative is the Hong Kong Chinese Medicine Talent Short-term Training Programme co-organised with the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine in support of building an excellent pool of Chinese medicine talent.

The Financial Secretary pointed out that this year, the Transport & Logistics Bureau will conduct a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the Maritime & Aviation Training Fund (MATF) in attracting talent and promoting manpower development in the maritime and aviation sectors.

Several schemes have been launched under the MATF, including two schemes introduced in January this year in line with new developments in smart and green logistics, and another one to fund activities organised by local aviation-related organisations and academic institutions.

Additionally, Mr Chan stressed that in order to nurture legal talent with an international perspective and good knowledge of different legal systems, the Department of Justice will set up a dedicated office and an expert group this year to take forward the establishment of the Hong Kong International Legal Talents Training Academy.

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