In a move to further promote CityU's provision of professional training and development programmes to meet the needs of the region, in particular the mainland, the CityU Professional Services Ltd (CPS) establishes the CityU Professional Development Centre (CUPDC) in June to facilitate development in this area.

"China's open economy policy brings a lot of opportunities to the state enterprises. Some of those enterprises will be privatized, while others are about to go global. This is a great opportunity to serve mainland China community with our experience and knowledge," Mr James Ng, Executive Director of CityU Extension and Chief Executive Officer of CPS said.

CPS, one of the offices under the CityU Extension, was established in 1998 as a wholly-owned company of CityU. It aims at providing one-stop service in consultancy, human resources training and corporate training for the public and private sectors. In order to further expand its professional training activities, CPS establishes the CUPDC with an aim to organize exchange tours and training programmes in the region and the mainland.

 

 

Mr Ng described CUPDC as a platform, which offers support to university staff so that they can serve the mainland  community with training and development programmes at international standards. 

 

"Enterprises and government agencies in mainland China are our primary target markets. They represent a strong demand for training in management, risk management, and human resources management as well as innovation and technology. With such a strong demand, our Faculty of Business and our Faculty of Science and Engineering have now taken the lead in providing training courses to these clients," Mr Ng explained.

 

 

The CUPDC recently signed a contract to provide corporate training such as the Integrated Course for Advanced Management to Shanghai Automotive Industry (Hong Kong) Limited. The participants gain professional skills in areas such as project management, human resources strategy and planning, and logistics management.

 

 

The CUPDC also organizes trips to Hong Kong for mainland professionals and government delegations . These visits allow them  to understand the operations of professional agencies in Hong Kong. The CUPDC and the Beijing Construction Project Management Association jointly organized such a trip for Beijing construction professionals for a second time recently. At the same time, a delegation from the People's Municipal Government of Harbin visited Hong Kong as part of a related project.

 

 

The School of Continuing and Professional Education (SCOPE), another office under CTEX, also provides professional and training development programmes. With the establishment of CUPDC, the two entities complement each other in the professional training for Hong Kong, the mainland and the region. "Now we have the CUPDC to provide custom-made courses for professionals in mainland China and Hong Kong, while SCOPE continues  serving the general public," Mr Ng observed.

 

 

To mark the launch of CUPDC and to promote its services to staff who are interested in contributing their expertise to training mainland professionals, the Centre, in collbaoration with the External Liaison and Cooperation Office, organized a happy hour gathering on 18 June. About 50 staff took part to share their experiences and visions of offering manpower training on the mainland.