Hong Kong Chief Executive Lee Ka-chiu announced Hong Kong's first five-year plan at the Legislative Council on the 16th, declaring that it will be fully aligned with China's "15th Five-Year Plan", highlighting that Hong Kong is accelerating its deep integration with China's system in terms of policy planning, national security, and economic and industrial structure.
The document, titled "The First Five-Year Plan for the Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (2026-2030)," has a total of 7 parts and 28 chapters, with about 60,000 words. Li Jiachao emphasized that the formulation of this plan is the Hong Kong government's planning need to "actively align" with China's national development strategy and better integrate into and serve the overall national development. It is also an action plan to promote Hong Kong's governance and revitalization. China's "15th Five-Year Plan" adopted in March this year outlines a development blueprint and puts forward higher requirements for Hong Kong, providing Hong Kong with "major development opportunities."
In order to echo Beijing's policy of coordinating development and security, the plan specifically details how to maintain national security in an independent chapter. It clearly proposes to shift security governance to "pre-emptive defense" and make good use of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to promote smart public administration. It also requires "severe crackdowns on the infiltration, sabotage, subversion, and separatist activities of overseas hostile forces and local anti-China and destabilizing forces in Hong Kong."
At the social level, the plan proposes to widely promote national security education to civil servants, schools, communities and enterprises, and to cultivate national concepts, national feelings and national identity among young people. It also plans to hold an average of 120 anti-terrorism exercises every year in the next five years, and prepare to hold a large-scale cross-department anti-terrorism exercise every 12 to 18 months, thereby strengthening the all-round national security defense line.
In terms of economic and industrial layout, the plan is also highly consistent with China's development orientation, setting 17 major goals, including maintaining gross domestic product (GDP) growth within a reasonable range, increasing the proportion of innovation and technology spending in GDP to 3%, and increasing the value added of new industries to 5.5%, and accelerating the development of "new quality productivity" in line with Beijing's policy direction.
In the face of changes in the international financial landscape, Hong Kong will deepen its connection with China's financial system, focus on consolidating its status as the world's leading cross-border wealth management center, strengthen its function as the world's largest offshore RMB business hub, and continue to expand the scale and ecosystem of offshore RMB business.
In terms of geo-spatial integration, the plan is to accelerate the development of the "Northern Metropolitan Area" adjacent to Shenzhen, focusing on the establishment of a "Bedu University Town" that integrates scientific research, achievement transformation and industry, becoming a concrete practice for Hong Kong's deep integration into China's national construction.
The Associated Press reported that observers are paying close attention to whether Li Jiachao, whose term will expire next year, intends to use this five-year plan and the latest policy address to gather political momentum for re-election. As the former Secretary for Security, Lee Ka-chao has completed the local national security legislation in Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law that Beijing has long requested in 2024. In official narratives, the law, along with the Chinese-imposed national security law for Hong Kong, is crucial to maintaining social stability after massive anti-government protests in 2019.
However, Mr Lee is under pressure to make Hong Kong stand out among regional rivals and Chinese metropolises after tightening controls by Chinese authorities tarnished Hong Kong's image as a liberal financial hub. Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis, pointed out that although the general policy direction is not much different from the past, the Hong Kong government has become more deeply involved in and dominated the economy by setting quantitative targets and delivery deadlines.
