Shenzhen has designs on hosting key Beijing-backed science centre – and Lok Ma Chau Loop on Hong Kong border is part of the plan
- Mainland city is eyeing status as country’s fourth Comprehensive National Science Centre, which could bring a steady stream of funding, research equipment and other support from Beijing
A planned scientific research zone straddling the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen will be a major boost for the mainland city’s ambitions to become one of only four key science centres nationwide receiving funding from Beijing.
That was the message on Tuesday from Shenzhen’s No 1 official, Wang Weizhong, who said the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science, Technology and Innovation Collaborative Zone would help the city “overcome our disadvantages in basic scientific research”.
Shenzhen is already widely considered China’s most technologically advanced city, but Wang said he hoped the joint project would help it become a Comprehensive National Science Centre.
The zone is split between the 87-hectare Lok Ma Chau Loop on the Hong Kong side of the border, which hosts the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park, and a 300-hectare Shenzhen Technology and Innovation Park on the other side in Futian district.
“One particularly important point is that we need to make it an international technology and innovation centre for the ‘Greater Bay Area’,” the Shenzhen Communist Party chief said at an annual session of the Guangdong provincial legislature in Guangzhou.
