Britain launches campaign in Hong Kong to boost cooperation on creative industry

Hong Kong, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Britain launched a year-long campaign in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Thursday to promote British design and boost cooperation on creative industry.

The campaign, named "Great British Design", will include around 21 events with different themes including fashion, media, industrial design and architecture, and will bring the largest ever delegation of British designers to Hong Kong, according to the British Department of International Trade in Hong Kong (DIT Hong Kong).

"This campaign is not being launched anywhere else around the world. This is a campaign for Hong Kong," said Paul McComb, director general for trade and investment at DIT Hong Kong, adding that the pinnacle of this campaign will be Business of Design Week (BODW) 2019, for which Britain has been named the official partner country.

BODW is an annual program in Hong Kong and enjoys the reputation as Asia's premier event on design, brands and innovation. This year's BODW, to be held in December, will see Britain's return as the official partner country after their initial collaboration back in 2006.

"British design and innovation, when harnessed to local Hong Kong design and innovation, was so powerful, and it was regional. That was the thing we were trying to create here in a place like Hong Kong, which is, as we all know, a super conductor for this region," British Consul General Andrew Heyn told a reception marking the launching of the campaign.

In a video message, John Sorrell, a renowned designer and the British prime minister's business ambassador for creative industries, said that the British design industry can offer Hong Kong and the surrounding region talents, ingenuity as well as partnership.

Sorrell, who will lead the British design delegation to BODW in December, said that he hopes to have conversations in Hong Kong about possible cooperation that is "to everyone's benefit."

Eric Yim, chairman of the Hong Kong Design Center, the host of BODW, pointed out that BODW has been mentioned as a major industrial event in both the HKSAR chief executive's recent policy address and the Chinese central government's outline plan for the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

"Sharing the same vision as the DIT about the role of design in shaping our collective futures, we are thus very excited to be partnering with Britain for BODW. Your support in bringing the best design industry leaders to Hong Kong will surely increase the impact of the event and enforce a dynamic learning and exchange of ideas between economies, cities and industries," Yim said.