Opening Speech by Mr. Stephen Mak, Deputy Government Chief Information Officer, for the "Asian 3G Forum" on 20 October 2006 at the Hong Kong Productivity Council
20 - 10 - 2006

John, Distinguished Speakers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning! It is my pleasure here today to deliver the opening remark for the "Asian 3G Forum". I am delighted to see guests from the ICT industry from all over the world to share knowledge and experience on the development of mobile communications, and 3G in particular.

Wireless and mobile technologies have been changing the way we live. I believe almost every one of you has at least one mobile device. You can now dial their mobile phone numbers instead of their residential telephone numbers if you want to contact your friends. You can now get connected to the Internet anywhere. You can now perform your electronic payments, and download music via your mobile device. Terms like mobile entertainment, mobile office, and mobile surveillance are becoming part of our day-to-day vocabulary, as will be things like Near Field Communications and mobile web services that require little or no human intervention.

The 3G markets worldwide continue to grow significantly in the past few years. With 3G's high communication capacity and growing user base, they will keep on growing and will provide a fertile ground for developing new mobile applications and new mobile consumer electronics. Recent statistics show that about 230 3G operators worldwide from almost 100 economies are providing 3G services to over 375 million subscribers. And it is predicted that the 3G mobile subscriber population worldwide would reach 1 billion by 2010. Mobile operators, device manufacturers and application developers over the world are working closely together for the next generation mobile products and services. Indeed, mobility may well be one of the main drivers that will precipitate the Next Generation Internet.

Hong Kong is one of the early places in deploying 3G. We have introduced 3G services since early 2004. Now, all the 4 licensed 3G network operators in Hong Kong, namely 3 Hong Kong, Hong Kong CSL, SmarTone-Vodafone and SUNDAY Communications, have already launched their 3G services. As of July this year, the number of 3G subscribers has exceeded 1 million. The growth is encouraging, as the number has doubled the figure last year. Various kinds of mobile services and applications such as TV news, face-to-face conference call, stock trading, ticketing, video-clipping, online gaming and location-based searching are already in the market and they very innovative. 3G and other emerging wireless and mobile technologies have been the driving forces for the burgeoning innovative and creative applications. And I believe that more of them are fast coming and I'm sure speakers of today's Forum will share their experiences and insights with us later in the day.

All along, the Government has been promoting and facilitating the development of wireless and mobile services and technology (WMST) in Hong Kong. The Government has been adopting WMST progressively and over 60% of our departments have deployed wireless and mobile applications. We have set up a task force on Facilitating the Adoption of WMST in March 2005 with representatives from the industry, academia and the Government. The major goal of the Task Force is to facilitate the wider adoption of WMST in the Government, businesses and the community. As the convener of this task force I'm particularly happy and grateful to note that we have got staunch support from the academia and industry experts in developing a robust action plan.

The Government has also been working closely with the ICT industry on different initiatives to promote the adoption of WMST. The "3G Cyberport" Project is one of them. Sponsored by the Government, the Project is implemented by the Hong Kong Wireless Technology Industry Association (WTIA) and the Hong Kong Wireless and Development Centre (HKWDC). It aims to provide a community environment at the Cyberport to facilitate the development of 3G applications and the exploration of new 3G business models. The outcome of this project has received recognition from the industry. The 3G applications developed under this project have been showcased in various events and some of them will be exhibited in the coming ITU Telecom World 2006 in Hong Kong and the 3GSM World Congress 2007 in Barcelona.

We recognize the importance of becoming a strategic partner with the Mainland, in particular to drive innovation and broaden the market. The HKSAR Government and the Datang Mobile Communications Equipment of China provided sponsorship to HKWDC to set up a TD-SCDMA testing site in Hong Kong Cyberport recently. TD-SCDMA is one of the 3G technologies developed in the Mainland and the testing site aims to facilitate local mobile developers to develop applications and train local developers on TD-SCDMA. It is expected that some mobile applications will be rolled out using this technology soon.

We recognize the importance of creating intellectual property (IP) in this competitive world of globalization. Innovation is the key word. 'Domestic IP' is also a major priority for China's 11th Five-Year Plan. In Hong Kong, the Government launched the Hong Kong Research and Development Centre for Information & Communications Technology in April 2006. The Centre is hosted by the ASTRI (Applied Science and Technology Research Institute) to perform high quality R&D for technology transfer to industry, develop needed technical human resources and act as a focal point that brings together industry and university R&D assets to enhance Hong Kong's technological competitiveness on a continuous basis. It is missioned to be a strategic technological unit that creates real commercial impact for Hong Kong. Together with a world class legal and economic infrastructure, Hong Kong has put itself on favourable ground for innovation and IP creation.

The wave of the wireless and mobile technologies is not arriving, ladies and gentlemen, it has arrived. This wave has taken us from restricted communications to ubiquitous communications. This wave has taken us from office working to working anywhere. This wave has taken us from classroom learning to learning anywhere. There is no limit on how far it can go. In particular, 3G provides an opportunity for the growth and better future of our ICT industry. The Government, academia, mobile operators, IT vendors, and application developers have been working together to achieve this goal. And with your help, we can make that one day today. We need to continue riding on the wave and keep up the momentum and synergy. I hope that the event today will facilitate idea and experience exchanges among all of us, and as a result of these exchanges, generate more co-operation and collaboration opportunities in the community and ICT industry in Hong Kong.

Before I close, I should like to mention that two days ago we published a draft consultation document on our thoughts for the 2007 release of the Digital 21 Strategy. As most of you may know, this strategy is the blueprint for ICT development in Hong Kong. Going through this document, it strikes me that if one looks at the strategic areas in bold and italics one can readily relate them to mobile and wireless technologies and applications, including 3G of course, the very theme of today's Forum. I encourage you to do the same and share with us your comments and input.

Finally, I would like to thank the WTIA for organizing this event. I hope you would enjoy the rest of the progamme today.

Thank you.

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