Five-Year Plan: Hong Kong eyes boost in innovation spending, ratio of doctors to population among other targets

Hong Kong has set a range of goals as part of its first Five-Year Plan in line with China’s, from boosting spending on innovation to increasing the ratio of doctors to the population.

Chief Executive John Lee spent around an hour and 20 minutes reading out key points from the Five-Year Plan before moving on to the Policy Address. He said the Five-Year Plan had five goals.

These include “economic breakthroughs, maintaining Hong Kong’s rising international competitiveness and influence, accelerating the development of the Northern Metropolis, improving social wellbeing, and… integrating into and serving overall national development,” Lee said in Cantonese.

This is the first time Hong Kong has developed its own Five-Year Plan to align with the one in China, where the Soviet-inspired initiative provides a development blueprint for the country.

As part of the plan, authorities set 22 indicators labelled “anticipatory” or “binding,” adopting the same evaluation framework Beijing uses in its Five-Year Plans.

Among the “anticipatory” indicators is an increase in the ratio of total domestic expenditure on innovation activities to GDP from 1.63 per cent in 2024 to three per cent after 2030, as well as an increase in the “value added” of the tourism industry by 40 to 50 per cent.

The latter figure refers to contributions to the economy by industries – such as the hotel and retail sectors – providing goods and services directly to visitors.

Authorities did not set a GDP target for the end of the five years, but said that annual targets will be proposed “in light of prevailing conditions.”

Education and health

Beyond economic indicators, the government also outlined goals related to diversity in universities, the ratio of medical staff to population, and environmental matters.

The city is eyeing a 25 per cent increase in non-local students enrolled in full-time post-secondary education programmes, from 79,800 in the 2024/25 academic year to 100,000 in 2029/30.

Authorities hope to boost the ratio of doctors to total population from 2.25 doctors per 1,000 people last year to 2.43 in 2030. They also aim to achieve an “upward trend” in per capita public health expenditure, but have not specified a figure.

These three indicators were listed as “anticipatory” rather than binding.

Environment and development

The Five-Year Plan also outlined four environment-related “binding” indicators. Authorities aim to increase the share of zero-carbon energy in the fuel mix for electricity generation from 25 per cent in 2024 to 30 per cent in 2030.

They also aim to lower the average concentration of PM2.5 air pollutant particles from 15 micrograms per cubic metre to below 14.

Regarding the Northern Metropolis, the Five-Year Plan outlines two related indicators.

Over the next half-decade, authorities will strive for a cumulative 750 per cent increase in “spade-ready sites” in the metropolis, referring to land that has been made ready for construction works.

See also: Hong Kong sets binding target for 900 ‘spade-ready sites’ in Northern Metropolis by 2030

The government also hopes to increase the number of completed housing units in the Northern Metropolis by 640 per cent.

Proposed in 2021, the Northern Metropolis is a sprawling infrastructure project set to transform 30,000 hectares land near the city’s rural border with mainland China. The tech hub promises to provide jobs, more homes, and deeper integration with neighbouring Shenzhen. However, critics have voiced concern over the HK$224 billion project’s scale and ambition, its impact on sensitive wetland habitats, and the loss of existing homes and farmland.

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Hillary Leung is a journalist at Hong Kong Free Press, where she reports on local politics and social issues, and assists with editing. Since joining in late 2021, she has covered the Covid-19 pandemic, political court cases including the 47 democrats national security trial, and challenges faced by minority communities.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Hillary completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She worked at TIME Magazine in 2019, where she wrote about Asia and overnight US news before turning her focus to the protests that began that summer. At Coconuts Hong Kong, she covered general news and wrote features, including about a Black Lives Matter march that drew controversy amid the local pro-democracy movement and two sisters who were born to a domestic worker and lived undocumented for 30 years in Hong Kong.