Financial Secretary Paul Chan announced in his Budget speech today that the Government will enhance its talent-related schemes and promote the “Study in Hong Kong” brand by holding more global education conferences to trawl for talent.

Mr Chan said that top talent will be invited to Hong Kong under the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme for development and both the Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents & Professionals and the General Employment Policy will be enhanced to allow young non-degree talent with professional and technical qualifications and experience to join skilled trades that face manpower shortages in the city.

The Government will also launch enhancement measures to provide greater flexibility for the New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme, which has so far received more than 880 applications, with an expected investment of over $26 billion.

In addition to planning the second “Global Talent Summit ˙ Hong Kong” that is scheduled to be held early next year, the Government will attract more students to study in Hong Kong via various measures including the Belt & Road Scholarship.

To stimulate primary and secondary school students’ interest in innovation and technology, technology-related bodies including Cyberport have been invited to co-ordinate the efforts of more than 100 technology enterprises to engage in exchanges with the students to share frontier exploration and startup experience in technology through product displays and site visits in the coming year.

On the post-secondary education front, Mr Chan highlighted that the Government will launch a new round of the Research Matching Grant Scheme, totalling $1.5 billion, to attract more organisations to support research endeavours and raise the quota of the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme to 400 places per year.

As the self-financing post-secondary institutions complement publicly-funded ones in providing diversified articulation pathways, the Government has launched a new round of the Land Grant Scheme and the Start-up Loan Scheme, under which land sites are granted at a nominal premium with interest-free loans to support capacity expansion and quality enhancement of self-financing institutions.

On the medical front, the Financial Secretary pointed out that the Task Group on New Medical School has invited local universities interested in setting up the third medical school to submit proposals. The task force expects to complete its assessment and formulate recommendations later this year. 

He added that the Government will set aside resources to support universities in the development of the new medical school on a matching basis.