The history of the Hong Kong electronics industry

HK: The electronics industry was an emerging industry in Hong Kong in the 1960s. The first electronics factory was established in 1959. Europe and Japan were the world’s pioneers in electronic technology. In the 1970s, the low production costs in Asia attracted manufacture of developed countries to come and set up factories and thus electronics technology was passed to Hong Kong. Electronics industry is a labour-intensive industry whether it is a factory manufacturing components or consumer goods, large numbers of female workers with sharp eyes and deft hands are needed. Hong Kong’s electronics industry was chiefly founded on the manufacturing of consumer goods, but the production of components also developed to a considerable scale.

Hong Kong electronics industry started by assembling transistor radios and its mainstream business was assembly of consumer goods which required lower technology. At the same  time the industry manufactured high tech components such as computer memory and circuit boards. The electronics industry in Hong Kong started earlier than that of South Korea and Taiwan. In the early 1980s Hong Kong had become one of Asia’s high tech centres and started to transfer skills to the surrounding areas. The situation was similar to foreign entrepreneurs investing in Hong Kong in the past. After some thirty years of rapid development the electronics industry had become the second largest in Hong Kong in the 1990s. As most of the local electronics factories were founded only in the 1970s for the 1980s, electronics industry was still considered a young industry which required a relatively high level of technical competence compared to other industries.

Source; Hong Kong Memory

This article was first posted on 14th March 2026.