Hong Kong is, traditionally, a strong base for manufacturing electrical appliances and electronic devices for consumers all over the world.  Answering Beijingﾒs call for modernization towards the end of the last millennium, practically all manufacturers had moved all or part of their production facilities to the motherland, especially the Pearl River Delta.  Taking advantage of the generous municipal supports and plentiful supplies of human and natural resources, most enterprises flourished.  Of all disciplines, the electronics industry is perhaps the most successful one as it has expanded more than tenfold in less than two decades.  Today, it leads the world in making audio-visual equipment, electronic toys, cordless phones, household tools, quartz watches, personal computers, and computer peripherals.  All of a sudden, the Greater Pearl River Delta has emerged as the Factory of the World.

Besides the so-called cluster-effect that makes just-in-time manufacturing possible, our edge in the global market is our ability to deliver a huge quantity of labor-intensive, high-quality, yet low-priced products promptly.  Facing severe competitions from other developing countries and regions, we manage to survive by acquiring the state-of-the-art facilities for making consumer electronic products more cost effectively.  In other words, the local electronics industry is labor-intensive as well as capital-intensive. 

This winning formula is, unfortunately, fading fast as the western provinces in China are catching up rapidly.  The local industrialists can either migrate inward or move forward.  For those who opt to stay, making innovative, intellectual-property-rich, and high-value-added products is, perhaps, the only viable solution.

As a government funded institution in Hong Kong, the research center must, unfortunately, team with those who stay, but we know, fortunately, that we will prevail.  Our optimism is based on the perfect record of the local industry in her previous attempts in moving from strength to strength.  For example, in supporting their peers in manufacturing low-end products, some industrialists have bought the most advanced machineries for mass-production of critical components such as lithium polymer batteries, light emitting diodes, and pick-up heads for magnetic hard disks.  In fact, many of them have mastered the skills for enhancing their facilities and designing new ones for making the sophisticated products in the demanding market, let alone the efficient management of these plants.  On he other hand, we have strengthen our lead in quality assurances, reliability analyses, lead-free production techniques, electronic packaging techniques, electromagnetic compatibility tests, application-specific integrated-circuit designs, and other engineering supports.  At the same time, we have accumulated the technological know-how and experience that enable us to evolve from original-equipment-manufacturers to original-designers-and-manufacturers, together with the ability to conceive a novel product for an emergent market.  Nonetheless, we are poised to play a more important role in making high value-added products for consumers and small-and-medium enterprises in some market sectors.

All in all, the Wireless Communications Research Center is committed to develop relevant technologies and design innovative products in strategically selected areas for the local industry.