Research just completed by a team of professors from The Chinese University of Hong Kong's Faculty of Business Administration has revealed that Hong Kong's total entrepreneurial activity in 2002 is among the lowest in the world.

　　Called "The GEM Hong Kong Country Report", this is part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) -- a 37-economy research project launched by leading scholars in 1999 to measure, on annual basis, entrepreneurship around the world.

　　A good cross-section of developed and developing countries are represented in the GEM project. Asian participants include Australia, Mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and Thailand. Hong Kong is participating for the first time, as are China, Chinese Taipei and Thailand.

　　The Hong Kong Team is led by Professor Bee-Leng Chua. The research team includes Dr. Law Cheung Kwok, Professors David Ahlstrom, Kevin Au, Chee-Keong Low, Shige Makino and Hugh Thomas.

　　The "GEM Hong Kong Country Report" is based on a survey with 2,000 Hong Kong adult residents and interviews with 40 national experts in a diverse range of sectors. It is the first of a three-year study of entrepreneurship in Hong Kong compared to other participating countries.

　　Preliminary findings show that

• Hong Kong's total entrepreneurial activity (TEA) in 2002 is among the lowest in the world, with only three per cent of Hong Kong's adult population initiating new ventures.
• There are more "opportunity" entrepreneurs (two per cent) than "necessity" entrepreneurs (one per cent).
• The "opportunity" entrepreneurs are more likely to have post-secondary education and to come from the wealthiest third of society.
• The youngest age group (18-24) is also the most entrepreneurial.

　　Professor Chua's team has identified a number of strengths and weaknesses. Strengths include Hong Kong's great location in the rapidly growing and entrepreneurial Pearl River Delta; excellent physical and legal infrastructures, low taxes, pro-business government; Hong Kong people's superior business skills and entrepreneurial, self-reliant tradition; a world-class banking system as well as abundance of informal capital for business start-ups.

　　Weaknesses range from high costs, small markets, an education system that is not conducive to creativity, poor links between research and development; Hong Kong people's poor knowledge of and connections with the Pearl River Delta and banks' conservative bias towards asset-based lending.

　　The "GEM Hong Kong Country Report" is supported by HK$1.605 million funding from the SME Development Fund run by Hong Kong SAR Government's Trade and Industry Department; the Hong Kong Management Association's Chinese Executive Club and The Chinese University of Hong Kong's Asia Pacific Institute of Business.

　　Full details of the "GEM Hong Kong Country Report" as well as the Hong Kong Team's policy recommendations will be released at a forum called "Revitalizing Entrepreneurship" to be held on Wednesday, December 4, 2002, 2:00 p.m. - 6 p.m. Venue will be announced later.

　　The GEM Global Report, called the "Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2002 Summary Report" was released in London and Boston at noon, US Eastern Standard Time and 6 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time on November 13, 2002).