Hong Kong unveils first Five-Year Plan to align with China

Hong Kong's government unveiled its first Five-Year Plan on Wednesday, setting out an economic and social strategy to 2030 intended to bring the city more closely into line with mainland China's development goals.

City leader John Lee announced the plan. An official document said Hong Kong will aim to make research and development account for three percent of gross domestic product after 2030, up from 1.63 percent in 2024.

The plan also aims to speed up development of the Northern Metropolis, a project to build a large technology hub near the border with mainland China. The project, first proposed in 2021, is expected to eventually cover a third of Hong Kong's total land area.

Lee said on Tuesday, before the plan's publication, that it would uphold Hong Kong's capitalist system. “I want to make it very clear: the five-year plan is not a planned economy,” he said.

China has made scientific and technological self-reliance a priority, investing in industries including semiconductors and artificial intelligence as a way to reduce dependence on the United States. The Chinese Communist Party has used five-year plans to set development targets and social priorities since the 1950s.

Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997 and is now a Chinese special administrative region with economic and trade rules that differ from the mainland's. It has long benefited from its semi-autonomous position as a free-market gateway for investment into and out of China, while Beijing has asserted greater control over the city's governance since widespread protests in 2019.

Christine Loh, a former government official and lawmaker, told AFP the plan would give Hong Kong a “useful governance tool” for longer-term planning. Dylan Loh, an associate professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, said the move was “primarily to synchronise” Hong Kong with China's national Five-Year Plan released in March and would accelerate Hong Kong's economic intertwining with Beijing.

Critics and local residents have raised concerns about the Northern Metropolis project's potential environmental impact and strain on public finances.