Want to make Hong Kong manufacturing great again? Give us space
- Scarcity of land for new plants makes expansion a challenge for firms
- Leader Carrie Lam is pushing for revitalisation of ageing industries to give city a lift up technology ladder
Behind the navy blue facade of a revitalised industrial building in Tsing Yi, one of Hong Kong’s industrialised areas, 600 researchers are hard at work on the next generation of smartphones.
This is the nerve centre of ASM Pacific Technology, which designs, develops and manufactures machinery to produce components for smartphones, cars and opto-electronic devices.
The 300,000 sq ft centre figures prominently in Hong Kong’s re-industrialisation ambitions, but the space squeeze almost got in the way of the company’s plans to scale the technology ladder and create “designed in Hong Kong” products.
“From searching for a space to moving into the new office took us three years and cost us HK$300 million [US$38.5 million],” ASM chief executive Lee Wai-kwong said. “It is very hard to find space in Hong Kong.”
ASM has its headquarters in Singapore and is listed in Hong Kong with a market capitalisation of HK$30.3 billion. It runs research and development (R&D) centres in Singapore, Germany and Boston and factories in Shenzhen and Huizhou, in Guangdong province.
Its difficulty in finding premises reflects a common complaint of factory owners hoping to expand or go into new areas of production.
