also issued on the same day the which sets out the application criteria and necessary supporting documents for an application. According to the government, organizations should submit their applications to the Lands Department.

"We hope the two measures can encourage optimization of existing eligible industrial buildings or industrial lots for development of datacenters to meet the market demand," Lai said.

However, datacenter businesses will have to rely on themselves when competing with the much more resourceful property developers for space. Having already identified 1,300 'eligible' industrial buildings suitable for datacenter use, the government won't help datacenter firms secure space from any of these buildings, citing Hong Kong's free market operation.

According to Lai, the OGCIO's Data Center Facilitation Unit -- set up last July -- has received more than 100 inquiries on building datacenters in Hong Kong. Most of the inquiries are from local businesses rather than overseas multinationals, he said.