The "2024 Hong Kong Innovation Activity Statistics" released by the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government on the 23rd shows that the total expenditure on local research and development in Hong Kong continues to rise, increasing to HKD 35.772 billion in 2024, an increase of 8.4% from HKD 33.006 billion in 2023. According to statistics, the ratio of total local R&D expenditure to gross domestic product in Hong Kong has further increased from 1.11% in 2023 to 1.13% in 2024. In addition, the number of R&D personnel has shown stable growth in the past few years, reaching 47210 in 2024. A spokesperson for the Special Administrative Region government stated that the country has explicitly supported Hong Kong's construction of an international innovation and technology center in the 14th Five Year Plan and the 15th Five Year Plan proposals, and promoting innovation and technology development has always been one of the key policy areas of the current Special Administrative Region government. Since taking office, the current Special Administrative Region government has been actively improving the local innovation and technology ecosystem, committed to consolidating the advantages of upstream basic scientific research, promoting the transformation of midstream scientific research achievements, and developing downstream industries. Good progress has been made in various measures. The total local R&D expenditure and the ratio of total local R&D expenditure to gross domestic product in Hong Kong are expected to have ideal growth in 2024, which is encouraging. In the future, we will continue to use the "three major innovation and technology parks and five major research and development institutions" as the main framework, actively promote the coordinated development of upstream, midstream, and downstream, and accelerate the development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong. A spokesperson for the Special Administrative Region government stated that the 2025 policy address announced a series of measures to empower technology and promote high-quality economic development. Since the release of the policy address, the SAR government has actively promoted various projects and has made good progress, such as the Hong Kong Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park, which officially opened in December. The SAR government will continue to promote the implementation of various policy measures to further promote the development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong, develop new quality productivity, and realize the vision of promoting Hong Kong to become an international innovation and technology center. (New Society)