A leader in digital competitiveness? Hong Kong still has a way to go

One could almost hear the sound of self-congratulatory collective pats on the back in Tamar after the release of the 2024 global digital competitiveness ranking by the Swiss International Institute for Management Development (IMD).

The city has risen three places to seventh and, without missing a beat, the government hailed Hong Kong as one of the world’s most digitally competitive economies. Officials were also not shy when it came to taking credit, with a government spokesman pointing to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s technology initiatives in his most recent policy address to systematically build an innovation and technology ecosystem.

Singapore came top of the ranking, by the way – but that’s not the point, at least not here. The importance of cultivating Hong Kong’s innovation and technology goes without saying. Initiatives such as the HK$10 billion (US$1.3 billion) government-led fund, which aims to attract up to HK$100 billion in investments, show the government is on the right track.

The IMD report recognised the city for its strong performances in the “technology” and “knowledge” categories, ranking third and fifth respectively. One of the city’s top strengths, under the “knowledge” category, is our number of sciences graduates, in which we lead the world. We have made solid achievements in training and education.

We have also come first for four consecutive years in “technological framework”, one of the subfactors under the technology category. But we dropped two places from last year in the “regulatory framework” subfactor. While the city’s traditional advantages – notably the ease of starting a business – place us in the world’s top 10, we lag behind in categories like artificial intelligence (AI) policies, where we rank 28th.

The debate over the use of AI in education has been particularly worrisome, as much of it has been over student cheating. We are slowly moving away from that but not quickly enough.