Design gallery helps drive HK towards creative capital
Updated: 2007-11-09 14:29
Staff at the gallery would also handle enquiries and help potential buyers get in touch with individual suppliers if it was necessary, Wilson Wong, merchandising officer of the gallery, told Xinhua, adding that the gallery would each week remove some of the exhibits and replace them with newcomers, some at the Designers Corner.
The gallery has been a successful matchmaker, generating more than 2,000 enquiries a year and helping Hong Kong-based companies like Puffy Shop expand quickly.
The gallery carries part of Hong Kong's ambition to build itself into a creative capital, a goal set out in length in the recent policy address by Donald Tsang, chief executive of the special administrative region in south China.
"Globalization has brought about the rise of various cultural and creative industries. The markets for leisure goods, advertising, film, television, tourism, design, architecture and art are flourishing," Tsang said. "These high value-added industries are environment-friendly and compatible with the mode of economic development for global cities."
Hong Kong has attained a leading position in the Asia-Pacific region in such industries such as film, television, music, design, etc. with Hong Kong film as its most successful creative product in the global market.
But the city's leading position is under threat as neighboring regions have caught up.
"My view is that to maintain our edge, the development of our creative industries must accelerate in the next five years," Tsang said, outlining plans on developing projects like the West Kowloon Cultural District and financing training programs.
Senior government officials said they wanted Hong Kong to be a "creative capital" or "technological serving hub" in the region. The strategy was delicately different from efforts in the previous years to develop a technological edge with projects like the Cyberport and industry parks concentrating on electronics and Chinese medicine.
Frederick Ma, secretary for commerce and economic development of the Hong Kong government, said last month "creative industries are part of our life ... involving various fields such as film, television, design architecture, urban planning, etc."
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