On 16 May, "SmartHK", a flagship event of Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), was held at the InterContinental Hangzhou. Over 1000 enterprises from Zhejiang Province attended.

The event featured a range of activities including thematic seminars and business matching, with the aim of demonstrating the unique advantages of Hong Kong in the development of the "Belt and Road" initiative, and exploring new business opportunities.

As a leading telecom service provider in Hong Kong, HKT joined hands with several organizations including HKTDC to organize a thematic seminar on the "Digital Silk Road – Opportunities and Challenges Presented by Belt and Road". Representatives from PwC, EflyCloud and Zhejiang Jolly Information Technology also shared their experiences.

(Five experts exchanging views during the panel discussion. Left to right: Mr Larry Wong of HKT, Mr Gabriel Wong of PwC, Mr Gilbert Mak of HKT, Mr Marco Zheng of Efly Cloud and Mr Zhou Heng of Jolly Information)

The central and local governments of China have been driving the "Belt and Road"initiative in recent years. The "Digital Silk Road" and the way  to drive the development of the digital economy, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and smart cities are important parts of the overall initiative.

At the seminar, the experts shared their experiences of positioning Hong Kong in the initiative, and the opportunities and myths that enterprises face on the Digital Silk Road journey. As Mr Larry Wong, HKT's Head of China Commercial Business, said, "Hong Kong benefits from three major advantages: an all-inclusive telecom infrastructure; a well-developed submarine optical fiber cable system;and high broadband coverage. With its world-leading competitive strength in information technology, Hong Kong plays the role of "super connector" and provides strong support for the development of the "Digital Silk Road".

In addition to the demand for information technology,the "Belt and Road" initiative has also brought demand for interconnectivity in areas of trade and logistics. In his speech, Mr Gabriel Wong, One Belt One Road Leader and China Corporate Finance Leader of PwC, discussed the market potential of a population of 4.4 billion with a gross output of US$21 trillion in areas including infrastructure, telecom investment, banking and logistics.He also introduced a series of misperceptions and challenges which enterprises might face when making overseas mergers and acquisitions.

In his talk entitled "The development of telecom and communication technology – creation of the Digital Silk Road", Mr Gilbert Mak, Vice President of China Engineering, and a Solutions Consultants for HKT, introduced HKT as a bellwether in the information technology industry. With a network covering both submarine and land cables in the main regions along the"Belt and Road", HKT has optimized its network in relation to different regions and provides enterprises in different industries with comprehensive network deployment and highly flexible options.

Gilbert said, "For example, for the cross-border e-commerce and service industry, we can help solve the problem of bottlenecks in network access between different regions, and ensure high-speed and low-latency access to keep pace with the trend of mobile shopping. We can also help enterprises complete their deployment of a global network."

Mr Marco Zheng, Co-founder of the Guangdong Efly Cloud Computing Co., Ltd, spoke for enterprises which are, or will be, going global. In his talk entitled "Enterprises moving on to the Digital Silk Road", Marco introduced the deployment of Efly global Cloud solutions and the construction of their local ring network in Hong Kong. Using examples in industries such as games, cross-border e-commerce and multinational enterprises, he elaborated on the trend of overseas deployment and the specific needs in realizing the Digital Silk Road.