Qianhai spruces up

Startup, legal development
The Qianhai plan also supports technology development in the zone, focusing on artificial intelligence, healthcare, financial technology and new materials. It aims to improve services facilities in the entire industry chain, including high-end talent centers, venture capital funds and incubators. The Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneur Hub began operating in 2014, originally occupying 58,000 square meters. In July, the facility opened up a further 92,000 square meters for young entrepreneurs, especially those from the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions. So far, more than 600 startup teams, including 331 from Hong Kong, have been incubated at the e-hub.

Zhou Fei, an MBA graduate from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, took his startup, BMTek Inc, to the e-hub in 2017. Within six years, the number of his employees has grown from a dozen to about 150, and he plans to hire 100 Hong Kong professionals in the future as the company prepares to explore overseas markets.

BMTek has moved into a five-floor building in the new space and is discussing the setting up of a joint artificial intelligence laboratory with HKUST. Zhou and his team have spent years developing AI-empowered machine-vision technologies that have been dominated by foreign enterprises. Compared with foreign offerings, his product can cut the cost of such technologies by half, while its revenue has more than doubled in the past two years.

The Qianhai plan also aims to further open up the legal services sector and encourage more Hong Kong law firms to operate in the zone. Two Hong Kong lawyers in Qianhai were licensed to practice in the nine mainland cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area last month. They can now represent residents in those cities.

William Ng Lok-ming, a Hong Kong lawyer who was granted a license to practice in Qianhai, said the zone's robust development and its "relatively familiar" atmosphere are the most important factors in his decision to choose Qianhai for his business. He expects the volume of legal services in Qianhai to go up in the near future.

Qianhai initiated a Shenzhen-Hong Kong international legal services center in January. The center has so far gathered more than 120 international institutions of justice, arbitration, mediation, legal services and intellectual property protection. In May, it promulgated a measure to hand out rewards of 200,000 yuan ($28,600) to law firms that employ more than 30 Hong Kong or Macao legal practitioners. Licensed Hong Kong lawyers in Qianhai can also get a reward of 30 percent of their practicing income on the Chinese mainland, with a maximum of 100,000 yuan per person each year.

Growing business exchanges in the zone have led to more legal disputes that need to be resolved. By late last month, the Shenzhen Qianhai Cooperation Zone People's Court had accepted more than 10,000 Hong Kong- and Macao-related commercial cases, according to a white paper the court released.