Participating enterprises must meet the following entry requirements.

1. The participants must be legally registered enterprises domestically or abroad.

2. The projects declared by the participating enterprises should be innovative and have high potential; The competition gives priority to the scientific and technological innovation projects with worldwide leading core technologies, breakthroughs in core key technologies and good industrialization prospects.

3. The products and technologies involved in the project declared by the participating enterprises should belong to them, and the right to use the relevant patents also belong to the participating enterprises, and there must be no property right disputes.

4. The participating enterprises should have the sincere intention to develop their career in the cooperation zone or Macao, and have the feasibility to settle in the cooperation zone or Macao.

5. The competition especially encourages overseas talents with relevant international industrial influence or important industrial influence in Portuguese-speaking countries to participate in the competition in the form of enterprises.

Note:

The winning teams that won financial supports in the previous two HSTECs shall not participate in the competition again.

Two groups, the Start-up Group and the Growth Group, are set up for participants to choose from. Each enterprise can only participate in one group.

1. Start-up Group

In addition to meeting the entry requirements, enterprises that register for the Start-up Group should be established no earlier than January 1, 2019.

2. Growth Group

In addition to meeting the entry requirements, enterprises that register for the Growth Group should meet one of the following requirements:

(1) The prime operating revenue of the enterprise reaches 50 million RMB or more.

(2) The enterprise has been financed by social capital, with the amount of financing reaching 100 million yuan or more.

(3) The enterprise value reaches 1 billion yuan or more.

(4) The enterprise has been included in the list of technologically advanced ‘Little Giant’ enterprises announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The competition has two tracks: Regular Track and Macao Track. Enterprises participating in the Macao Track are ranked separately in three rounds of evaluation: Preliminary, Intermediary Heat, and Semifinal On-the-spot Investigation.

1. Regular Track

meeting the entry requirements and additional requirements of Start-up Group or Growth Group.

2. Macao Track

In addition to meeting the entry requirements and additional requirements of Start-up Group or Growth Group, enterprises participating in the Macao Track need to meet one of the following requirements:

(1) The enterprise has been legally registered in the Macao Special Administrative Region for more than one year.

(2) One of the founders or core team members is a permanent resident of Macao or an employed academic staff from a college or university registered in Macao.

(3) The enterprise is invested in by permanent residents of Macao or Macao enterprises (referring to enterprises registered and established in Macao and whose actual controllers are permanent residents of Macao), whose proportion of shares calculated by the enterprise equity penetration method accounts for no less than 5% of the enterprise.

(4) The enterprise has cooperated with scientific laboratories established in Macao (The cooperation agreement that is still valid on the application deadline of the competition should be provided).

(5) Enterprises established in Portuguese-speaking countries or outside the Chinese mainland (except those established in the Macao Special Administrative Region) who promise to sign a landing commitment within two weeks after advancing to the Semifinal On-the-spot Investigation and start the registration procedures of Macao enterprises simultaneously.

Note:

The participating enterprises in the Macao track are ranked separately in the three rounds of evaluation: Preliminary, Intermediary Heat, and Semifinal On-the-spot Investigation. Once the competition enters the Semifinal, all participating enterprises will compete according to the same evaluation criteria.

1. Straight-through Mechanism

The organizing committee selects a certain number of strategic cooperation competitions each year, and the winning enterprises selected by those competitions can go straight to the designated stage of HSTEC after approval from the organizing committee. The number of straight-through enterprises will not exceed 20% of the advancement quota of that stage. The competition this year cooperates with the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (Macao) for Technology Enterprises from Brazil and Portugal, Macao Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and BEYOND Expo.

2. Sponsorship Mechanism

The Organizing Committee and key members of the supporting entities of the competition can sponsor the participating enterprises that meet the entry requirements and additional requirements of competition categories but do not successfully advance to the Intermediary Heat or Semifinal On-the-spot Investigation to enter the next round. The maximum number of the sponsorship quota shall not exceed 5% of the advancement quota in the round, of which the number of the sponsorship quota shall not exceed 15 in the Preliminary and 5 in the Intermediary Heat. The sponsored enterprises will not occupy the quota of other advanced enterprises.