HK establishes new office for online talent engagement platform

Hong Kong has officially established a physical office in Wan Chai for its online talent platform "Hong Kong Talent Engage" (HKTE) (人才服務辦公室), to strengthen recruitment of and support for talents to pursue development in the city. 

Following the launch of HKTE last year, the city's chief executive Johh Lee said in his policy address last Wednesday (25 October) that the government would establish a physical office for the platform to render full support to its endeavours to attract and retain talents.

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HKTE aims at assisting talents in their long-term development in Hong Kong and formulate targeted recruitment and publicity strategies for different talent groups.

The office will collaborate with the Dedicated Teams for Attracting Businesses and Talents (招商引才專組) under the government in carrying out external promotions of Hong Kong to attract more talents to come to Hong Kong to pursue development. 

Furthermore, the office will reach out to recruit partners for rendering appropriate support, through physical and online activities as well as services, to those talents interested in coming to Hong Kong or those who have just arrived in the city for their living, work and children's education to facilitate their settlement.

It will also keep in touch with those talents who have arrived in Hong Kong to understand their development and needs in Hong Kong, aiming to gather useful references for policy review and adjustment of support services in future.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the office, Hong Kong's chief secretary Eric Chan said 160,000 applications in total were received under the various talent admission schemes in the first nine months of this year, with over 100,000 of them approved.

“Around 60,000 talents so far have had their visas approved to come to Hong Kong, far exceeding our key performance indicator of drawing at least 35,000 talents per year," he added.

Anthony Lau, director of Hong Kong Talent Engage said the office will partner with diversified organisations to provide diversified services to talents, including real estate companies, educational organisations and hotels.

"We will work together to provide different services to encourage and help the talents adapt to Hong Kong society in a short time,” Lau said.

Moving on, Lau said that the office will devise recruitment strategies and collaborate with various industries after analysing the 51 professions and nine industries under the government’s talent list.

Don't miss: HK expands talent list to 51 professions including AI specialists

According to the Labour and Welfare Bureau, the new job types include AI specialists, cloud infrastructure specialists, software specialists, innovation and technology (I&T) experts, data scientists and cyber security specialists. The talent scheme allows these overseas workers to obtain a work visa under a fast-track arrangement.

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