The Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Edward Yau, will depart Hong Kong tomorrow (September 17) for a four-day duty visit to San Francisco and Los Angeles in the United States (US).
Mr Yau will start his visit in San Francisco. He will officiate at the opening ceremony of the "Co-creating Hong Kong: a design+ exhibition" co-hosted by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in San Francisco (San Francisco ETO) and the Hong Kong Design Centre, with support from the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) San Francisco. He will attend a VIP reception and dinner hosted by the San Francisco ETO.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Mr Yau will visit the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (d.school) to learn how the school's design thinking programmes help students develop their creative and innovative abilities. He will visit 500 Startups, a venture capital company, which provides seed accelerator programmes to support startups from around the world.
In Los Angeles, Mr Yau will join the Hong Kong Trade Development Council's mega international promotion "Think Asia, Think Hong Kong" to promote Hong Kong's business services to US companies seeking opportunities in Asia. He will address the opening session of the "Think Asia, Think Hong Kong" symposium and attend its gala dinner. He will speak at a luncheon co-organised by the Milken Institute, a think tank, and the San Francisco ETO.
Mr Yau will also officiate at the opening ceremony of a tourism promotion event organised by the Hong Kong Tourism Board in Los Angeles to showcase the unique tourism offerings of Hong Kong to the US tourism trade. He will officiate at the opening ceremony of the Architecture Exhibition "Island_Peninsula" organised by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects.
Mr Yau will return to Hong Kong on September 22 morning. The Under Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Dr Bernard Chan, will be the Acting Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development during his absence.