HKSAR to fully grasp opportunities under 15th Five-Year Plan: official

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) will fully grasp the development opportunities brought by multiple forward-looking objectives set for China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), and the region will proactively align with the national development strategies and integrate more deeply into the country's overall development, Paul Chan Mo-po, financial secretary of the HKSAR, said in a blog post on Sunday.

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held its fourth plenary session in Beijing from Monday to Thursday. Participants at the session deliberated over and adopted the Recommendations of the CPC Central Committee for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, according to a communique of the session released on Thursday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In the blog, Chan said that the work targets proposed for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period represent scientifically assessed and precisely targeted responses to current domestic and international challenges, which will ensure China's steady progress toward high-quality development.

As Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis serves as a platform for advancing in-depth cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and is a key vehicle for attracting investment, it would be one of the most important policy objectives of the HKSAR government to accelerate the development of the Northern Metropolis, which is also crucial to Hong Kong's future, he noted.

The scientific formulation and consecutive implementation of five-year plans represent a crucial aspect of China's governance and a significant political strength of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The socio-economic development objectives set after scientific deliberation demonstrate strong continuity, with each five-year plan both building upon its predecessors and innovating in step with the times while upholding fundamental principles, according to Chan.

"Over the past five years, despite the complex and turbulent international political and economic landscape marked by rising unilateralism and protectionism, China has consistently advanced high-level two-way opening up. It has contributed its strength and wisdom to global governance and development, demonstrating the responsibility of a major country and injecting greater certainty into an uncertain world," Chan said.

Last week, Chan led a Hong Kong delegation to visit Beijing's sub-center and the Xiong'an New Area in North China's Hebei Province, which "provided profound inspiration to all delegation members." Drawing on those experiences, Chen proposed several suggestions to accelerate the development of the Northern Metropolis in Hong Kong.

For example, he suggested the region should fully leverage the HKSAR's unique advantage under "One Country, Two Systems," along with its role as a "super connector" and "super value-adder," to strengthen industrial collaboration, innovation and technology cooperation, and academic exchanges with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. This will enable resource sharing, complementary advantages, coordinated development, and mutual success, Chan said.