Early last week, I led a Hong Kong delegation comprising more than 160 members to attend the 2015 Mainland and Hong Kong Construction Industry Forum in Yinchuan, Ningxia. This annual event serves as an excellent platform for representatives and professionals of the construction industry from Hong Kong and the Mainland to get to know each other, exchange experiences and ideas, and explore opportunities for co-operation. This year’s theme was “Belt and Road; Collaboration for Success”.

At the forum, I suggested that the Mainland and Hong Kong construction industries might consider building a “Silk-Road Joint Platform” for infrastructure under the “Belt and Road” initiative to bring together professionals from the industry and related sectors to explore the markets. Strategies would include exploring an international financing channel for the Silk Road infrastructure projects, building a network of diversified and world-class professional service teams to support the Silk Road infrastructure, and setting up a high-level permanent platform for communication and policy discussions in relation to the Silk Road infrastructure.

I was glad to see quite a number of young and new faces participating in this year’s forum. Among them were seven students who are studying construction-related subjects at tertiary institutions. They were the institution representatives from the Hong Kong Construction Association Young Members Society Council, and were the first batch of students to participate in the forum. During a break at the forum, I chatted with them and exchanged views on the development opportunities for Hong Kong’s young generation.

In recent years, some people in Hong Kong have sniggered at the “Spirit of Lion Rock” of the previous generation, and said that their success was mainly due to the conducive environment at the time. If we simply urge young people to work hard to achieve success, we are just ignoring the unfairness in development opportunities in our society. In this regard, I think that the issue should not be oversimplified, and people from different generations should not be pitted against each other. On the one hand, I agree that for my generation, the launch of our careers coincided with Hong Kong’s economic boom at that time, and the special historical and social factors have indeed contributed to our success. Therefore, we should not be quick to criticise the young people with casual remarks like “The newer generations are getting less competent than the previous ones”. On the other hand, I believe that Hong Kong people of different generations have their own challenges and opportunities. For my generation, social resources were extremely scarce at the time, and receiving a higher education was not as common as it is now. More often than not, hard work would not be rewarded with opportunities for further studies or moving up the social ladder. In addition, it was very difficult to find a good job when we embarked on our career paths. For the young people nowadays, Hong Kong’s economy may no longer be at the height of rapid growth. However, I believe that with our country’s development, especially under the “Belt and Road” initiative, it will continue to transform and upgrade itself, thus driving up the demand for all kinds of professional services and human resources. There will definitely be development opportunities for Hong Kong’s young people as more platforms will be available to them to develop their talents when compared with those available in our time. That is why we have been encouraging young people to have a better understanding of our country’s development and plan for the future according to their ambitions and talents.

Some may be sceptical when we encourage young people to explore their career development on the Mainland or overseas, and wonder if we are trying to send our young people away, or even to carry out a so-called “overhaul” by replacing them with the “new population”. I hope that people will look at the issue in a rational and practical manner. In this age of global competition, talents around the world are all highly mobile and Hong Kong has all along been open to talents from around the world, which is one of the factors underpinning our success over the years. Under these circumstances, it is all the more necessary for the young people to broaden their horizons, remain confident in taking up challenges and look for development opportunities that suit them best. Take Singapore as an example: its professionals travel to Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, India and the Mainland to explore development opportunities.

Furthermore, as China’s development and the global situation have been ever changing, we have to see things from different perspectives. We may take for example the quality of “Made in China” products, which is a matter of concern to the Hong Kong people. Our country is well aware of the problem and is launching the “Made in China 2025” action plan to expedite the process of upgrading the quality of Chinese products and enhance innovation. As far as the construction industry is concerned, the Guobiao standards (the Chinese national standards) are not widely known internationally and there is still room for improvement. The “Belt and Road” initiative is an opportunity not only to promote the advanced Guobiao standards overseas to gain international recognition, but also to encourage the adoption of general international standards and requirements by increasing connectivity among regional facilities, thereby achieving the goal of aligning Chinese construction standards with international standards. In this connection, the Hong Kong professionals who are conversant with the international standards can serve as a bridge to align Chinese construction standards with international standards while expanding their own businesses.

I am aware that our young people dearly love Hong Kong, their home, and are interested in local affairs. I hope that they can be open-minded and pay more attention to the global and national development, so as to broaden their horizons. As long as they continue to love their home city, reach out to our country and the world, and make continuous improvements, I believe they will create a new “Spirit of Lion Rock” for their own generation.