Edward Tse says the trailblazing blueprint requires residents and officials to look at issues from a broader perspective with a genuinely global outlook

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s inaugural five-year plan (2026-30) marks a shift in the region’s development approach.

For a long time, the city’s government — before and after the 1997 handover — has not been accustomed to longer-term, comprehensive and strategically integrated planning. Since this is the first time it has done so by formulating a five-year blueprint, some degree of learning by doing was inevitable.

The five-year plan is fundamentally different from the Policy Address, the Budget, or the policies formulated separately by individual bureaus. It needs to be holistic, taking into account Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland and the global environment. It also needs to be cross-cycle, looking beyond the usual annual planning horizon, and cross-functional, cutting across the traditional boundaries between government departments.

The five-year plan requires the HKSAR government to operate in a completely new pattern, with progressive changes being made within the administrative apparatus and beyond. Most importantly, however, it will require a different way of thinking.

The blueprint requires a different perspective. If one of Hong Kong’s most important missions today is to “integrate into the overall national development”, then the lens through which policies are developed must be fundamentally broader than the city itself — a major leap in the way the city thinks about itself. One important task is to clarify how Hong Kong should dynamically connect with national development.

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Now that the plan has been published, it will be worth observing how the city, armed with a clear answer to this question, is able to build consensus among stakeholders both within Hong Kong and across the rest of the country.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, the nation aims to maintain economic growth within a reasonable range, while increasing total national research and development expenditure by more than 7 percent annually. By 2030, nonfossil fuels are expected to account for around 25 percent of total energy consumption.

Looking further, China aims to basically achieve socialist modernization by 2035. Per-capita GDP is expected to double from the 2020 level and reach the level of a moderately developed country, while the size of the middle-income population is expected to expand significantly. By 2050, the objective is to build the nation into a great modern socialist country.

Beyond these quantitative goals, the country’s development agenda also reflects a broader set of values that the nation is increasingly presenting to the world. They are rooted partly in China’s long history, culture and civilization. At the same time, they have also evolved through the country’s modern experience: its changing position in the world, the problems it has had to confront, and the lessons it has accumulated along the way. Such an emerging value system is beginning to influence a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs, providing part of the underlying context through which they think about innovation, business models, competition and collaboration in global markets.

For many years, Hong Kong has described itself as a superconnector and, more recently, as a super value-adder. But in my view, they are no longer sufficient to define what it means for Hong Kong to integrate into national development, nor are they sufficient for the next stage of the city’s own development.

Integration cannot be limited to individual projects, policies or mechanisms. There is another dimension that may be even more fundamental: alignment at the level of values. Put simply, the SAR needs to understand what Chinese modernization means, how it relates to the nation’s four global initiatives, and how Hong Kong can align itself with these broader values and objectives.

As the world becomes increasingly multipolar, geopolitics will become more complicated and more uncertain. This creates a very different planning environment for Hong Kong.

Finance and economics, areas in which Hong Kong has traditionally been strong, will certainly remain important in geopolitical competition. Hong Kong also needs to think more clearly about its priorities in areas such as innovation and technology, culture, security, governance and the environment, while continuing to make use of its distinctive role in external engagement and regional coordination, which constitute the backbone of the city’s first five-year plan.

Hong Kong is now taking a longer-term and more integrated approach, a significant adjustment in the governance philosophy. The most important outcome of strategic planning is often not the plan itself. In fact, the real value of the five-year plan lies in the strategic thinking behind it. Strategic thinking is not something people are simply born with; it can be developed through repeated discussion, debate and broad participation. The planning process therefore provided an important opportunity for officials to strengthen their ability to think across different domains and weigh different trade-offs.

Hong Kong’s government has historically had less need to conduct integrated, top-down strategic thinking across departments and policy domains. Can Hong Kong learn from mainland governments in conducting integrated strategic planning across multiple functions and departments, and in subsequently monitoring implementation? I believe it can.

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When mainland governments promote major industries or large strategic projects, coordination is often led at a relatively senior level. Dedicated task forces may be established to move the work forward. Project lists, on-site coordination and tiered problem-solving mechanisms are frequently used to bring together departments responsible for technology, finance, land, talent and other resources. When issues cut across departments or even across regions, specific coordination mechanisms can be established to resolve them. Planning is also not regarded as the end of the process; implementation is continuously monitored, feedback is collected, and plans are adjusted as circumstances change.

Clearly, Hong Kong does not need to copy the mainland model wholesale. Its institutions, governance traditions and economic structure are different. But the underlying logic — linking planning, coordination, implementation, monitoring, feedback and continuous adjustment — is something Hong Kong can learn from.

For Hong Kong, the five-year plan is an important turning point. It requires residents, and particularly officials, to look at issues from a broader perspective, with a genuinely global outlook, and through the lens of how Hong Kong can integrate into national development.

The author is founder and CEO of Gao Feng Advisory Co, a strategy and management consulting firm with roots in China.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.