2010年7月12日星期一

Forum on “Know your Business and its Potential, Local Testing and Certification Industry”

The Testing and Certification Industry is one of the six economic pillars identified by the Hong Kong Government. In order to share the latest Industry information, the forum entitled “Know your Business and its Potential, Local Testing and Certification Industry” was organized by Hong Kong Association for Testing, Inspection and Certification Ltd. (HKTIC) on 12 July 2010. The forum details were summarized below.

In the beginning, Ms. Christina Law (Chairlady of HKTIC) gave an opening speech and she expected Hong Kong to be the centre of Testing and Certification.


The first speaker was Prof. P.C. Ching (Chairman of HKCTC) and his topic was “HKCTC’s Recommendations to Support Further Development of the Testing and Certification Industry”.


Prof. Ching said the Government to adopt a dual approach in promoting the development of the industry. They were:
i) Making general improvements to the accreditation service
ii) Focused factors of production of industry and put efforts to specifics trades which covers Chinese medicine, construction materials, food and jewellery. Two emerging trades, namely environmental protection and information & communications technologies (ICT) would also be focused.
He also mentioned Manpower enhancement which would be achieved through cooperation with universities, VTC and Industry.
In Technology, he encouraged to use Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) enhancing the technical capability.

In Capital and Land, Prof. Ching pointed out to promote the shared facilities in Science Park and HKPC; as well as, to facilitate the testing laboratories setup in Industrial Estate.


Promotion inside and outside Hong Kong was one of the keys activities in HKCTC.


Lastly, Professor Ching said that the seventh edition of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) were agreed to extend the professional service to China.
The second speaker was Mr. Leslie Tang (Assistant Commissioner of Census & Statistics Department) and his topic entitled “Industry Profile of Testing and Certification Industry”.


Since there were no information specific for Testing and Certification Industry before, Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) conducted an ad hoc survey during Dec 2009 to Jan 2010. There were three objectives of such survey. It was for understanding i) Business Performance, ii) Manpower Situation and iii) Some Operation Characteristics.

Mr. Tang pointed out five constraints:
i) Tight survey schedule
ii) No well-defined coverage
iii) Objective accounting data not yet available for 2009
iv) Through voluntary survey only
v) No sampling frame

The coverage of the industry was separated into three categories (It was used for survey.).
Category A – Private independent laboratories (Response Rates – 82%)
Category B – In-house laboratories in large manufacturers and exporters (Response Rates – 82%)
Category C – Laboratories in Government departments / public organizations (Response Rates – 82%)
The summary of key survey findings were shown below.


From Category A, there were 280 establishments from testing services, some 270 establishments from inspection services and 30 from certification services.

The following chart showed business amount in different product / services tested in 2008.


From the survey, Mr. Tang observed very high education in T&C industry (Knowledge worker). Almost 70% manpower was degree holder or above.



After the survey, he observed some useful information in T&C industry as follows.
i) Trade practices in the industry
ii) High credibility of the industry
iii) High profit margin
iv) High value added per person engaged


The third speaker was Mr. John Hung (Secretary – General of HKCTC) and his presentation was “Government Funding Schemes to Support Research and Development in the Testing and Certification Industry”.


Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) was established in November 1999 with HK$5 billion which provided funding support to projects that contribute to innovation and technology upgrading in industry, as well as those essential to upgrading and development of industry.
There were four programmes under Innovation and Technology Fund. They were:
i) Innovation and Technology Support Programme (Private sector sponsorship >= 10%)
ii) University-Industry Collaboration Programme (50:50 matching basis)
iii) General Support Programme (Private sector sponsorship >= 10%)
iv) Small Entrepreneur Research Assistance Programme (SERAP) (dollar-for-dollar matching basis)


Then Mr. John Hung introduced R&D Cash Rebate Scheme which launched on 1 April 2010 with HK$200 million. A company could receive a cash rebate equivalent to 10% of its R&D expenditure.


Company could join with some designated local research institutes for applying ITF and enjoyed R&D Cash Rebate Scheme.


Example of the calculation of the scheme was showed.


Q&A Session:


About CEPA & CCC:
Per Mr. John Hung, the details were still discussed and would be completed before 1 Jan 2011.
Logistics such as sample transportation time from China would be also discussed in CEPA platform.
Per Prof. Ching, CCC required CNAS accreditation and CNCA approval. HKAS would be expected to perform both functions.

About Funding:
It was suggested to separate the category of ITF specific for Testing, Inspection and Certification.
International conference could be considered to apply “General Support Program” in ITF.
SERAP was considered to be suitable for T&C industry because 95% of T&C Industries were less than 100 staff.

About Survey and Statistic Data:
Mr. Tang said the survey would be issued yearly. The challenge was how to extract the indirect contribution of T&C industry from Trading GDP data. (It was about 20% GDP from Finance and 25% GDP from Trading.)

About joining International/National Standard Development:
Prof. Ching said HKAS should assign some expert to be observer joining international standard technical committee. One of success local standards was “Standard Testing Methods o Jadeite Jade for Hong Kong” issued by GAHK. He expected the next success case to be Chinese Medicine standard.


After Q&A, souvenirs were presented by Ms. Christina Law to each speaker.




Finally, Group Photo was taken.



Reference:
HKCTC: http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/hkctc/about.htm
Report of HKCTC: http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/hkctc/related_document.htm
Report on the 2009 Survey of Testing and Certification Activities: http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/hkctc/related_document.htm
Innovation and Technology Fund: www.itf.gov.hk
R&D Cash Rebate Scheme: http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/funding/crs.htm


Related articles:
Briefing Forum on Report of HKCTC (31 May 2010)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2010/05/briefing-forum-on-report-of-hkctc.html
Regulatory Forum – HK Medical Device (28 May 2010)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2010/05/regulatory-forum-hong-kong-medical.html
Consultation forum of Qualifications Framework for Testing and Certification Industry (20 May 2010)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2010/05/qualifications-framework-for-testing.html
HKCTC Report Summary (10 April 2010)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2010/04/hkctc-report-summary-testing.html
Symposium on Development of Product Testing and Certification in Hong Kong (16 April 2010)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2010/04/symposium-on-development-of-product.html
Technical seminar on Worldwide Product Certification (27 March 2010)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2010/03/technical-seminar-on-worldwide-product.html
Hong Kong Council for Testing and Certification (HKCTC) Consultation Forum (27 November 2010)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2009/11/hong-kong-council-for-testing-and.html

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