On Wednesday, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu stood before the Legislative Council and did something no Hong Kong leader has done before: He unveiled a five-year plan. Shaped by 17,000 public submissions, the blueprint sets 22 major indicators for 2026 to 2030, five of them binding. Lee insists this is not a turn toward a planned economy, and the details support him.

Skeptics will see the blue cover as representing blue skies, openness, progress, and stability. And read “Beijing”. That is the wrong lens. The national 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) aims to make China a leader in advanced manufacturing and new quality productive forces by 2030. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s plan is about the capital, rules, talent and connectivity such an economy needs from an international city. The two are complementary: The Chinese mainland builds; Hong Kong finances, certifies, ships and insures.

The better question is whether this plan targets the right things. On the big-ticket items, it does. On several quieter ones, it falls short of what the city can do.

Start with innovation. The plan commits to raising spending on innovation from 1.63 percent of GDP in 2024 to 3 percent after 2030, slightly below Germany’s level. Its engine is the Northern Metropolis, with a binding pledge to expand spade-ready land from 120 hectares (1.2 square kilometers) to 900 hectares by 2030, a university town, as well as building a third medical school.

Paired with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park and five top-100 universities, this is the right bet: high-paying jobs for residents and for the international professionals the city must keep attracting.

Finance is the plan’s strongest suit. Hong Kong was just rated Asia’s top financial hub for the fourth straight year, and the plan doubles down on where the city has a genuine moat: offshore yuan, asset management, gold, and commodities.

Logistics gets similar treatment: a port community system, one-stop sea-land services, a green bunkering corridor, and an “airport city” to anchor transit traffic. On housing, the public rental housing waiting list has fallen from 150,000 applicants to roughly 100,000, and Northern Metropolis land should keep it falling.

Consider fertility. The Policy Address offers 11 new measures: a HK$30,000 ($3,824) bonus for second children, a higher tax allowance, a stamp-duty rebate, 95 percent mortgages on subsidized flats, and more childcare.

The shift from “topping up money” to “topping up time” is welcome. But the binding constraint for dual-income couples is not the down payment; it is career risk. Sweden grants 480 days of paid parental leave per child, reserves 90 for each parent, and gives parents a statutory right to cut working hours by a quarter until the child is 8 years old. Sweden’s birth rate has fallen too, so this is no cure, but its female labor participation is among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s highest, which is vital for a city with a shrinking workforce. Hong Kong’s 14 weeks of maternity leave and five days of paternity leave send the wrong signal. A review of such policy is necessary.

Consider skills. The plan is more degree-centric. Yet the jobs artificial intelligence is least likely to replace, such as data-center electricians and cooling technicians, port maintenance crews, medical technologists, and eldercare professionals, are precisely those Hong Kong underproduces. Germany’s dual apprenticeship system places some 1.2 million young people in paid, employer-led training and delivers one of Europe’s lowest youth unemployment rates.

A Hong Kong version, codesigned with Northern Metropolis employers, would create a second ladder into the middle class. Such a program could create sustainable employment for young people seeking careers in skilled trades rather than office settings.

Consider healthcare. Raising the number of doctors from 2.25 to 2.43 per 1,000 residents by 2030 is necessary but not sufficient. A health system also includes nurses, allied health workers, care aides, bedside manner, and attention to patient well-being. With more than one in five residents now 65 or older, a professional, respected eldercare workforce would relieve the “sandwich generation” caring for parents and children at once — itself a fertility policy, at lower cost than another cash bonus.

Consider the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The plan speaks of integration; it should specify a division of labor. Leave manufacturing to the mainland, while Hong Kong focuses on performing the final, highest-value operations before export: testing, certification, customization, financing and legal assurance under international standards.

“Made in Guangdong, completed in Hong Kong” is a proposition worth marketing. The port, which slipped out of the world’s top 10 in 2023, should likewise import the artificial-intelligence-driven automation already running at mainland terminals and compete on speed and reliability rather than volume.

Consider green development. The binding target to lift zero-carbon electricity from 25 to 30 percent is sound. Still, the plan is quiet on the circular economy, where Hong Kong already has a proof of concept: the Green Machine, developed by the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel with the H&M Foundation, which separates and recycles cotton-polyester blends at industrial scale. Recycling and remanufacturing can be industries, not just obligations.

Finally, livability. Hong Kong’s transit is world-class, yet reaching green space is not: Country parks cover 40 percent of the land, but for most residents, they are an hour away. Singapore, smaller and denser, puts more than 90 percent of households within a 10-minute walk of a park. The harbor-front promenade is a good start; however, accessible green space and room to play must be designed in from the start, not added afterward.

Five-year plans succeed when a society treats its targets as floors, not ceilings. The “can do” spirit that built this city was never about waiting for a plan; it was about outperforming one. Hong Kong now has the blueprint. The harder, and more rewarding, work is to outperform it.

The author is a distinguished professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.