IT Policy - The HKIE IT Division's Views Address by the Chief Executive The Honourable Tung Chee Hwa at the Provisional Legistlative Council meeting on 8 October 1997

In response to the Governement policy on building Hong Kong for a new era, the HKIE IT Division would like to contribute our professional views and concepts leading Hong Kong to a truely Information Society meeting the challenge in the 21st Century.

Introduction

HKIE IT Division welcomes the policy address on IT in building Hong Kong for a new era. We are glad that the Government has the determination to make Hong Kong a leader in the information world which matches what we advocated in the past including the cyber Economy concept (Refer to the Appendix of Road Maps for Cyber Economy on Physical Information Infrastructure, Applications and People) and an establishment (at Secretary level) of a government Bureau to co-ordinate the IT development across the Government departments related to IT. Now the policy and the direction on IT has been laid down by the Chief Executive, the main question we shall ask next is "how to properly implement the policy" It is the high time that we should also ask how we, as individual professional or ogranistation, contribute to achieve the goals for building Hong Kong for a new era of tomorrow other than asking what the Government can do for us.

Implementation

1. Bureau Secretary

The Bureau Secretary should be formed quickly to build up a platform for IT development. Individual IT organisations should be invited to participate in laying down the fundamentals (which include principles and rules) for creating such a platform. Those rules and principles should include,

    - A flexible regulatory framework that keeps pace with rapid technologies and market changes is vital to the creation of an adaptable information infrastructure. The framework should be conducive to interoperability standards and high security measure as well as promoting private investment and pro-consumers.

    - An established legal system in the cyber world is important for business applications to poliferate. The main reasons that prevents E-Commerce from taking off are the security and reliability issues.

    - Since IT relies much on new innovative development, we suggest to set up liason offices in strategic countries such as US, Japan and EC under the Bureau Secretary to facilitate information technologies transfer, business alliance and II connection with other countries.

2. Education and training of workforce

    - The policy address emphasises to educate the youger generation but has not mentioned education and continuous professional training of IT for current workforce (both IT and non-IT workforce). In order to maintain Hong Kong to be continuous competitive, training such as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) of IT advocated by the HKIE is crucial. We, HKIE IT Division, always prepare to serve and meet this challenge.

    - IT Education requires not only the qualified or trained teachers but also software learning packages. Common interfaces and standards especially Chinese standard should be mounted facilitating the development of the learning packages to support the IT Education. Again, HKIE IT Division is willing to contribute in this respect.

3. Information system for Business applications

    - The policy seems to focus on promoting international competitiveness and shifting into high technology industries. This is a bit risky because the Cyber Economics may be in opposition to the traditional Economics which emphasises scarcity. There is a possibility that the supply side policy may be undermatched by the market demand. Therefore, the implementation phase should be in balance of building the physcial infrastructure at one hand to meet the latent requirements of applications at the other hand.

    -End-

    Last Updated on 7 December 1997