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The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government signed a memorandum with the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government to jointly develop the Lok Ma Chau Loop into an innovation and technology park in early January. A telephone survey was conducted from 19 to 23 January by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to study public views on the park. 733 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 39.2%. The sampling error is + or – 3.62% at confidence level of 95%.

Major findings are summarized as follows: 

Public support and confidence are fundamental to develop innovation and technology industries. 72.2% of all respondents agreed to the importance of developing innovation and technology industries for Hong Kong’s future. Among them, 27.3% said they were “the most important” and 44.9% “very important”. Only 3.8% of the respondents did not think they were important, while 20.9% of the respondents thought the importance was “in-between”. The survey found that 44.1% of the respondents agreed that Hong Kong had adequate capacities to develop innovation and technology industries, only 15.3% of the respondents disagreed; 33.8% of the respondents said “in-between”. When asked whether working for innovation and technology industries in Hong Kong has good career prospect for young people, 46.7% of the respondents agreed. Only 8.6% of the respondents disagreed, with 37% of the respondents said “in-between”. 

In terms of the development of the Hong Kong Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park, 78.3% of the respondents had heard of the project before. After a brief introduction of the project, 59.8% of all respondents supported the idea of building the park in the Lok Ma Chau loop; 24.6% of all respondents opposed the project.  Among those supported the project, the three most popular reasons were “It promotes development of innovation and technology industries in Hong Kong”(43.6%), “It creates more job opportunities”(28.3%), and “It can make good use of mainland’s industrial advantage”(15.1%). Among those opposed the project, the three most popular reasons were “fear of too many mainlanders working in Hong Kong”(25.0%), “intention to keep a distance between Hong Kong and mainland China”(22.8%),  and “Hong Kong is not capable of developing innovation and technology industries”(21.7%).

Against a suspicion that the park may only benefit Shenzhen instead of Hong Kong, the survey found 47% of all respondents rated equivalent benefits for both Hong Kong and Shenzhen. 24.4% of the respondents rated the benefit is more for Shenzhen and only 14.1% of the respondents rated the benefit is more for Hong Kong.