How the 5-year plan can serve the nation and deliver for Hong Kong

This year marks the opening year of the national 15th five-year plan. Faced with accelerating change globally and significant opportunities brought by national development, Hong Kong must better integrate into and serve the overall national development, enabling our economic progress to reach new heights while enhancing people’s livelihood and well-being.

This February, I announced that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government would formulate the city’s first five-year plan. I led the compilation work, with the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs taking primary responsibility for implementation, and all principal officials and heads of departments participating. Producing Hong Kong’s first five-year plan carried significant responsibilities, including meeting Hong Kong people’s earnest expectations for the city’s long-term development.

The five-year plan, with all its demanding tasks, was devised under an exceptionally tight schedule. It often takes mainland cities one to two years of preliminary research and discussion to construct their five-year plans. We had less than a year to complete Hong Kong’s first five-year plan from scratch. I am grateful to all policy bureaus and departments, and the individuals involved, for their outstanding efforts under pressure – a breakthrough in the Hong Kong government’s public governance capabilities.

My team and I began by reviewing the five-year plan experiences of Macau and mainland cities. Officials from the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau visited mainland cities to learn from their experience.

In April, I introduced a research and public-opinion gathering channel between the government and the Legislative Council. My thanks to all Legco members for organising multiple opinion-collection sessions based on professional and sectoral divisions, and for submitting research reports covering six major areas to the government.

Working together, the executive and the legislature allowed the government to race against time while ensuring that the plan was representative and its scientific foundations remained solid.