Hong Kong’s development has often been associated with speed, openness and an ability to adapt to change. Its first five-year plan reflects that spirit and carries those strengths into the next stage of development.

It also aligns the special administrative region’s development with the national 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), while providing a longer-term framework through which the annual Policy Address sets priorities and the Budget supports implementation.

That matters because Hong Kong’s challenges and opportunities are increasingly interconnected. Land supply, housing costs, talent, innovation and public services are related and will advance most effectively when considered as part of the same long-term effort.

The plan’s scope is appropriately broad. It seeks to consolidate and enhance Hong Kong’s status as an international financial, maritime and trade center, strengthen its position as an international aviation hub, accelerate its development as an international innovation and technology center, and build an international hub for high-caliber talent.

These priorities sit within the “four centers and one hub” framework alongside legal and dispute-resolution services, regional intellectual-property trading, and East-meets-West international cultural exchange.

This is a solid starting point, but in an increasingly competitive and complex world, the city must keep innovating to remain relevant.

Finance has long been central to Hong Kong’s identity and prosperity, but it must increasingly support a wider productive economy and the next generation of industries and businesses — one that includes technology, advanced services, new enterprise, creative activity and higher-value regional collaboration. 

The same is true of innovation. Appropriate policies are vital, but success will be judged by practical results. Does research create business opportunities? Can young people find meaningful work in new industries? Can small companies use technology to improve? Can Hong Kong make it easier for ideas to move from the laboratory to the market? Its emphasis on developing new quality productive forces gives this agenda a clearer economic purpose.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Northern Metropolis, the clearest physical expression of Hong Kong’s long-term ambitions. The project is intended to be a new geography of growth, linking housing, innovation, university development, modern industry and closer cooperation with Shenzhen and the wider Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The SAR government has set targets to provide land to support over 70,000 housing units and 1 million square meters of economic floor space in the area over the next five years. It also aims to make available 900 hectares of spade-ready sites between 2026-27 and 2030-31.

The Northern Metropolis gives the city an opportunity to shape a new smart urban community from the ground up. That means accessible, first-class transport; schools and healthcare within reach; public spaces and amenities people want to use; and jobs that encourage people to stay. Success will be measured by its ability to function as a coherent community, not a collection of individual projects.

That is why the social dimension of the five-year plan matters. It covers education, healthcare, environmental quality, family support, youth development and living standards. These are not peripheral concerns. A city competes by giving people confidence that they can build a life there.

The plan also presents the Greater Bay Area as a practical horizon for collaboration. Hong Kong’s role will not be to duplicate what neighboring cities already do well. Its contribution lies in its combination of international connectivity, universities, professional services, legal framework, financial depth and experience operating between the Chinese mainland and global systems.

The task is to turn those strengths into partnerships that are easier to navigate and more productive in practice. This is consistent with the plan’s focus on using Hong Kong’s distinctive advantages under the “one country, two systems” framework to connect the mainland with the rest of the world.

That international role is also reflected in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s plan, supported by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, to establish the GlobE Network Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau in Hong Kong, strengthening regional cooperation against corruption and reinforcing international confidence in the city’s anti-corruption system.

That confidence is not built through finance and governance alone. Culture also matters, because a city’s success and global competitiveness are judged by more than output, land supply and capital flows. Cities are also judged by whether they can attract and retain people, develop talent, sustain institutions and project confidence in what they are. Culture gives economic progress a human and civic dimension.

This is where West Kowloon Cultural District fits into the larger policy picture. Both the plan and the Policy Address support WestK’s role in international cultural exchange and in developing Hong Kong’s cultural and creative industries. The Policy Address further identifies WestK as an important platform within Hong Kong’s cultural infrastructure.

The plan supports WestK’s sustainable development and envisages its contribution to Hong Kong’s cultural and creative industry. It also highlights Hong Kong’s potential as an international arts-trading platform.

This reflects a wider understanding that cultural institutions can contribute to tourism, professional capabilities, international partnerships and the city’s overall attractiveness.

The point is especially relevant as Hong Kong competes for talent. The Policy Address includes a new visa arrangement for nonlocal participants in recognized short-term training programs. That is a practical and welcome measure which the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority has identified as potentially beneficial to the WestK Academy’s talent-development work. It creates an opportunity to bring emerging professionals to Hong Kong for specialist cultural training, potentially including museum practice, heritage conservation, arts administration and related fields.

This illustrates how policy can work across the board. Talent programs should do more than bring people to Hong Kong; they should connect them with universities, companies and public bodies that can put their skills to use. In turn, those institutions develop further capability, supporting the economy and Hong Kong’s regional and international standing.

WestK’s physical development belongs in the same discussion. The WestK Performing Arts Centre is scheduled to open next year and will raise the district’s total number of performing-arts venues to 10. More importantly, it should give local artists greater room to develop ambitious work, create more opportunities for international collaboration, and deepen the cultural life that strengthens Hong Kong’s appeal as a place to live and work.

Hong Kong’s first five-year plan should therefore be read as an exercise in bringing together economic policy, spatial development, social investment, and institutional strength, and in how clearly it turns that long-term vision into annual action.

If well executed, it can give the city a stronger sense of direction: keeping finance strong, making innovation more credible, turning the Northern Metropolis into a genuine community, improving public services, and using institutions — including cultural ones — to make Hong Kong more competitive, connected and livable.

The author is chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and former convenor of the Executive Council.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.