Following the release of the first five-year plan, the development of the Northern Metropolis has emerged as the most high-profile strategic initiative in Hong Kong. The project serves as the primary engine for the city’s future growth, a catalyst for building a core innovation and technology (I&T) hub, and a driver for further integrating into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and serving the national development strategy.
Hong Kong has long suffered from an overreliance on a narrow economic base. The Northern Metropolis development strategy is a systematic solution grounded in the special administrative region’s realities and aligned with new national development paradigms.
Pioneering an innovation-driven urban model, the project’s developmental logic fundamentally differs from conventional industrial parks. Rather than a traditional manufacturing zone, it is envisioned as a new town of science and innovation, dedicated to attracting and anchoring forward-looking, strategic emerging industries. Its ultimate goal is to become a brand-new engine for cultivating new quality productive forces in Hong Kong. Industrial layout, residential amenities, ecological conservation, and cultural development were integrated in the planning. This holistic approach avoids the pitfalls of traditional development zones — which often prioritize industry over livelihoods and construction over ecology — ensuring that the new urban development ultimately serves the people.
Serving as a northern gateway to align and integrate with national strategies, the project is critical to Hong Kong’s future. While the city’s past periods of prosperity began by looking south to the sea, leveraging its port advantages to connect with the world, its next economic takeoff lies in integrating northward and participating deeply in the integrated development of the Greater Bay Area. Hong Kong’s first five-year plan outlines a vision of “South-North dual engine (finance in the south; I&T in the north)”, reshaping the city’s spatial layout. Situated at the boundary between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, the Northern Metropolis is a strategic nexus where resources from both sides converge, complementing each other and generating immense synergy.
Hong Kong boasts robust basic research capabilities, an internationally aligned legal system and seamless global connectivity, enabling a steady output of cutting-edge research. Shenzhen offers fertile ground for industrialization, an advanced smart manufacturing base and a vast Chinese mainland market, excelling at translating laboratory concepts into mass-produced goods. The Northern Metropolis will facilitate a new paradigm of two-way collaboration.
Anchored by two major I&T platforms — the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone and the San Tin Technopole — the plan mandates the coordinated development of Hetao’s “one river, two banks” and “one zone, two parks” vision. It calls for a specialized regulatory framework tailored for cross-border I&T, facilitating the secure, efficient, and convenient flow of innovation factors such as personnel, materials, capital, and data. This will complete a seamless innovation loop: linking Hong Kong’s research and development excellence with the Greater Bay Area’s translation, nationwide scaling, and global deployment.
The Northern Metropolis’ positioning as a strategic fulcrum serving the nation’s drive for tech self-reliance is of paramount importance. By enabling the mainland and Hong Kong to leverage their respective strengths and tackle frontier technological challenges, the region will enhance the nation’s competitiveness in the global I&T domain. Essentially, it will act as an incubator for new quality productive forces, addressing Hong Kong’s long-standing economic imbalances.
For too long, the city’s economy has been overly dependent on finance and real estate. Whenever financial markets fluctuate or the property sector corrects, local employment, tax revenues, and livelihoods take a direct hit. Economic diversification has been slow, leaving young people with limited career paths and society yearning for the emergence of new industries.
The project provides a new engine to drive industrial upgrading by creating three major university towns with differentiated layouts: The San Tin university town will focus on medicine, life and health technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, microelectronics, and other emerging industries, spearheading frontier I&T. The Hung Shui Kiu university town will concentrate on applied professional education in smart manufacturing, aiming to cultivate internationally minded industrial talent. The Ta Kwu Ling university town will integrate artistic aesthetics and blue-green ecological concepts, creating a unique district that aptly blends I&T, culture and ecology.
By prioritizing smart industries and future-oriented sectors, the region will foster high-value-added, high-growth new quality productive forces. Historically, many of Hong Kong’s top-tier research breakthroughs lacked local capacity for commercialization, leading to the outflow of research outcomes. As the project takes shape, research, education and industry will cluster in the same space. This will facilitate local commercialization of research, spawn numerous I&T enterprises and high-quality jobs, build complete industrial chains, and fundamentally transform Hong Kong’s economic structure, thereby enhancing its resilience.
Beyond economic development, the project is dedicated to building a comprehensive haven for living and thriving. The project aims to integrate university towns, I&T industries, jobs, and a livable and tourist-friendly environment, completely reversing the outdated model that separated jobs from daily life. The development includes a massive supply of housing, complemented by schools, hospitals, parks and commercial and entertainment facilities, achieving an alignment of industrial prosperity, urban refinement and public well-being.
Ultimately, the Northern Metropolis serves as a testing ground for modern governance, representing a bold exploration into upgrading the SAR’s administrative model. The project faces unprecedented challenges, including cross-border coordination, land development, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Relying on old administrative mechanisms will not suffice; institutional breakthroughs are imperative.
The plan introduces a series of reform measures, turning this region into a testing ground for the SAR government’s pioneering reforms. A range of innovative mechanisms — such as streamlined land approval processes, cross-border synergy frameworks, facilitated border clearance for talent, regulatory innovation in the I&T sector, and cross-departmental coordination — will be piloted there. The experience gleaned from these explorations will not only serve the Northern Metropolis but also pave the way for Hong Kong’s governance optimization, administrative efficiency, and long-term development.
With the Northern Metropolis pioneering innovation and providing a solid foundation, Hong Kong’s future development landscape is undergoing a profound renewal by addressing the city’s structural weaknesses and forging new strengths.
The author is vice-chairman of the Committee on Liaison with Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Overseas Chinese of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and chairman of the Hong Kong New Era Development Thinktank.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
