14 | Thursday, August 5, 2021 HONG KONG EDITION | DAILY BUSINESS Startup ecosystem set to boost high-tech in APAC

By ZENG XINLAN in Hong Kong the years as the government par- [email protected] ticipates more,” he said. Catherine Chen, senior vice-pres- Governments and businesses in ident and board member of Hua- the Asia-Pacific region are ramping wei, said startups play an important up efforts in building a startup eco- role in social advancement and the system, which officials and industry company hopes to leverage its expe- leaders believe is crucial for push- rience and resources to help start- ing forward innovation and tech- ups grow and enable them to nology development of the area. develop more innovative products “For sustainable growth of start- and solutions for the world. ups, apart from the government, The tech giant announced at the participance of the business com- summit that it will invest $100 mil- munity and academia is of equal lion in the next three years to sup- importance,” said Hong Kong’s port startups and help build a Secretary for Innovation and Tech- sustainable startup ecosystem in nology Alfred Sit Wing-hang. the Asia-Pacific region. The invest- The ecosystem for Hong Kong ment will go toward its Spark Pro- startups has become increasingly gram, an accelerator initiative vibrant over the past few years, Sit launched in 2020 for tech startups said at the first Huawei Cloud that operate business in the Asia- Spark Founders Summit, which Pacific region. was held simultaneously in Hong The program currently has a Kong and Singapore on Tuesday. portfolio of about 40 startups run- “With strong support from the ning in Singapore, Hong Kong, government and all cooperative Thailand and Malaysia. Huawei efforts from different stakehold- said it would expand the program ers, we are seeing phenomenal to four additional markets — Indo- growth in research and develop- nesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka ment in recent years.” and Vietnam — with the aim of Over the past four years, the registering a total of 1,000 startups Employees harvest wormwood, a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, at a plantation in Ji’an, province. chen fuping / for china daily Hong Kong government has invest- into the program and shaping 100 ed more than HK$100 billion ($12.8 of them into scaleups. billion) to support innovation and The Organisation for Economic technology development in the city Co-operation and Development said and the number of startups has scaleups refer to companies with an grown from roughly 1,000 in 2014 average annualized growth of at to 3,300 last year, he said. least 20 percent over three years and Jiangxi pilot zone to lead The government will introduce with 10 or more employees. more measures to promote the Leo Jiang, chief digital officer at sector and enhance Hong Kong’s Huawei Cloud Asia-Pacific, said a sol- status as an international innova- id research foundation supporting tion and technology hub, Sit said. startups could accelerate industrial charge in developing TCM Simon Loong, chief executive offi- upgrade and economic recovery. cer and founder of WeLab, a Hong “Startups can have a prominent Kong-grown fintech unicorn which effect on industries and enable debuted in July 2020, said Hong them to transform from being Local companies ramping up efforts for based Prozin Co Ltd invested over manufacturing, virtual reality, Kong is a good test bed for ideas. labor-intensive to knowledge- 60 million yuan into over 30 nation- industrial design, big data and the “The government plays an based, service-centric industries,” more important role in sector’s growth al scientific research projects, 48 internet of things to better develop important part. If you look at Jiang said. “In particular, those new drug research projects and four the region’s TCM industry,” he said. when we first started our business high-growth ones can stimulate By ZHENG YIRAN in national new drug clinical research in 2012, 2013 versus today, you can job creation to drive economic and WANG JIAN in projects. Contact the writers at obviously see a huge difference in recovery and growth in today’s It has undertaken more than 20 [email protected] the ecosystem in Hong Kong over pandemic-stricken landscape.” Jiangxi province is leveraging its Instead of simple national-level TCM projects and 28 national-level traditional Chinese medicinal materials provincial-level scientific and techno- medicine reform pilot zone to devel- logical projects, obtained more than op its TCM industry, and build up a trade, we focus on 100 scientific research achievements service system with local character- TCM innovations. To and more than 60 national invention istics. patent authorizations, and developed During the fight against the COV- develop China’s TCM a series of original TCM. ID-19 pandemic, Jiangxi actively industry, we follow Currently, the company’s annual integrated Western medicine and sales revenue totaled 760 million TCM to treat the disease. Among its the path from yuan, among which 5 percent will be 930 confirmed cases, 99.9 percent traditional Chinese used in TCM research and develop- were cured, and TCM participated ment every year. in 98.4 percent of the cases. A total medicine to modern Xiao Junping, chairman of Prozin, of 26 TCM emergency research pro- Chinese medicine said: “Instead of simple medicinal jects were launched. materials trade, we focus on TCM Jiangxi was approved as the and then scientific innovations. To develop China’s national TCM reform pilot zone in Chinese medicine.” TCM industry, we follow the path 2018. For nearly three years, Jiangxi from traditional Chinese medicine Xiao Junping, chairman of has constantly accelerated the Prozin Co Ltd, a Jiangxi-based to modern Chinese medicine and development of the TCM service TCM company then scientific Chinese medicine.” system. It has been exploring new “In the coming years, we plan to paths and development models of enlarge the production and sales TCM to build a system with local scale, build a national technology characteristics. center and a digital production Xiong Mingfeng, deputy director $2.9 base, and prepare the initial public of the Hongdu Traditional Chinese billion offering,” he said. Medicine Hospital in Nanchang, sales revenue from Jiangxi’s Jiang Zhong Food Therapy, a TCM industry from January to said, “Jiangxi is building a compre- Gongqingcheng, Jiangxi province- May, up 17.74 percent year-on- hensive TCM service system, to bal- year based company that integrates TCM ance TCM resources and make the with food therapy, invested 2 billion service available to the grassroots- yuan to build a large industrial base. level areas in the province.” dens, 32 provincial-level forest Currently, the first phase of the The quality of Chinese medicinal medicinal technology demonstra- project — two cookie production materials directly influences the tion bases, and formulated and pro- lines and seven rice cereal produc- development of the local TCM indus- moted more than 30 medicinal tion lines — was completed, and the try. “In order to promote the intensive, planting standards. output value surpassed 2.5 billion large-scale and standardized cultiva- From January to May, the sales yuan. It is estimated that after the tion of authentic Chinese medicinal revenue of Jiangxi’s TCM industry second phase is finished, the whole materials, we have built a demonstra- totaled 18.7 billion yuan ($2.9 bil- output value will reach between 5 tion planting base through coopera- lion), up 17.74 percent year-on-year. billion yuan and 6 billion yuan. tion with enterprises, farmers and The profit of the industry surged The 2021 Cooperation cooperatives,” said Hu Caihong, head 27.82 percent year-on-year to 2 bil- Organization Forum on Traditional of the TCM administrative lion yuan. Medicine was held in Nanchang bureau in Jiangxi. Local companies are playing an from July 28 to July 30. During the Data from the local government important role in developing Jiang- forum, the Nanchang Initiative on showed that currently, Jiangxi has xi’s TCM industry. For example, SCO Traditional Medicine Coopera- built 15 customized medicinal gar- Jinggangshan, Jiangxi province- tion was passed and issued. Accord- ing to the initiative, SCO counties are expected to strengthen exchanges and cooperation in tradi- tional medicine within the SCO framework and continue to hold the SCO Forum on traditional medicine. Ying Jiong, deputy director of the administrative committee of Gan­- jiang New Area in Jiangxi, said: “Gan- jiang New Area has been attaching great importance to TCM develop- ment, and has built a TCM scientific innovation city. Currently, the TCM scientific innovation city has basically formed a complete industrial chain integrating medicinal planting, extraction, preparations, finished drug packaging, medical equipment, pharmaceutical third-party logistics and terminal medical testing.” “With technical bottlenecks, we Employees pack herbal tea products at a production facility in Ji’an, are now promoting the application Jiangxi province, in June 2020. chen fuping / for china daily of new technologies such as smart