Industry 4.0, or reindustrialization, put forth in Hong Kong's 2016 Policy Address, refers to the development of high value-added industries and manufacturing processes that make use of smart production, data analysis and the internet of things.

According to Lai, 2021 was a record-breaking year for the HKPC's home-grown innovative enterprises in smart production, winning 58 international awards for various projects, such as the manufacturing of contactless elevator control panels.

For upcoming reindustrialization trends, he expects the focus to be on sectors like intelligent automation, smart wearables, immersive technology, artificial intelligence, as well as gig data and analytics.

Propelled by digitalization, last year also saw a boom in the digital space, triggering a series of crypto-related crazes. The roller-coaster ride in the value of cryptocurrencies hit an all-time high in January 2021, having seen highs and lows over the previous year. Bitcoin reached a record high price of $68,990.90 on Nov 10, overtaking the previous high at just below $65,000 in mid-April last year.

The cryptocurrency frenzy was followed by that of non-fungible tokens, which are being promoted as the digital answer to collectibles. They are unique, non-interchangeable items, as opposed to shares, commodities and dollar bills which are fungible. The current experiments with NFTs are taking place mostly in the gaming, fashion and art sectors, with digital art being one of the beneficiaries.