Exclusive | Hong Kong creative designers cry foul over bitter government expenses row in cross-border start-up project

Almost half of designers involved with ambitious cross-border project in Qianhai have waited a year to be reimbursed by the government, sources say

Non-profit federation at centre of dispute says matter is in hands of government, which oversaw its involvement, while authorities say they have asked group for full report and to improve on areas

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The Qianhai economic zone in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Photo: VCG/VCG via Getty Images

Published: 7:00pm, 2 Jan 2022Updated: 7:43pm, 2 Jan 2022

Seventeen young creative designers are embroiled in a bitter dispute with the Hong Kong Federation of Design and Creative Industries over unpaid expenses since 2020 for a cross-border pioneer project, the Post has learned.

The group claimed the Hong Kong government, which oversaw the non-profit federation’s involvement, still owed them expense subsidies totalling about HK$800,000 (US$102,578) as part of the one-year HK$9.9 million programme with start-up hub Zetta Bridge at Mawan of Qianhai, sources said.

Many designers complained about the poor management of the project, Incubation GBA 2019, and claimed that they were kept uninformed of a legal dispute over the property of Zetta Bridge, which resulted in the group being blocked from entering the hub and losing their belongings.

Shenzhen Municipal Committee’s Wang Weizhong (from left), Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and China Merchants Group chairman Li Jianhong at the launch ceremony at Zetta Bridge in August 2017. Photo: Handout

The Commerce and Economic Development Bureau told the Post that some designers among the 38 involved had been disappointed that the programme did not meet their expectations, citing uncertainties arising from construction delays, social unrest in 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

“These factors are unforeseen and beyond the control of [project manager] Hong Kong Federation of Design and Creative Industries,” a bureau spokesman said.

Grace Lau Kwan-bick, the executive director of the federation and assigned by the government to operate the project, said the matter was in the bureau’s hands.

“It is a pioneer project with both sides of the authorities having different ways of handling things and cultural differences,” she said.

When the project debuted in 2017 with a launch ceremony officiated by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor at Zetta Bridge in the Ma Wan area of Qianhai, it aimed to push Hong Kong designers to tap the potential of the Greater Bay Area.