SZ, HK join hands in building youth innovation workshop

Associations from Shenzhen and Hong Kong unveiled a youth innovation and entrepreneurship workshop in Hong Kong on Friday, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.

It was the first service platform set up in Hong Kong to help Hong Kong youth entrepreneurship teams with their startups in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), promoted by the Shenzhen Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.

The inauguration ceremony of the youth innovation and entrepreneurship workshop in Hong Kong on Friday. Shenzhen Economic Daily 

The platform integrates services such as promoting entrepreneurship projects and innovation contests, research and marketing, and policy promotion between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

“When we were operating an innovation base for Hong Kong youths in Shenzhen, we found out that Hong Kong teams not only need the supply chain in Shenzhen but also rely on Hong Kong’s advantages to promote their products globally,” according to Zhang Keke, founder of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Cooperation Promotion Association. Zhang came up with the idea of setting up a base in Hong Kong.

Zhang’s plan soon won support from Shenzhen’s human resources bureau, which helped his association find its partner in Hong Kong – the Federation of Hong Kong Shenzhen Associations – in establishing innovation workshops to help Hong Kong people better understand Shenzhen’s policies.

The Shenzhen bureau also held a policy promotion event in Hong Kong, the first of its kind in the special administrative region after cross-border travel between Hong Kong and the mainland resumed.

The Shenzhen side also visited the City University of Hong Kong to discuss topics such as cooperation in building incubators, organizing entrepreneurship competitions and holding campus recruitment events. The two sides reached a preliminary intention to establish the first Shenzhen-Hong Kong youth employment and entrepreneurship base in the university.

Shenzhen has issued a series of measures, including tax incentives, entrepreneurship guarantee loans and other supporting policies to help youths from Hong Kong and Macao establish their start-ups in the GBA.

In 2022, Shenzhen established seven city-level innovation and entrepreneurship bases for Hong Kong and Macao youths. A total of 912 projects have been incubated, bringing 1,203 jobs to Hong Kong and Macao residents. Another 347 projects are still in the incubation period, with an annual output value exceeding 400 million yuan (US$57.78 million).