On April 16, Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan Kwok-ki, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Janice Tse Siu-wa met with officials from the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office in Beijing. The subject was Hong Kong’s first five-year plan.
The old perception had been that Hong Kong never needed a long-term plan, as the city had long thrived on nimbleness, on market instincts, on the freedom to improvise. And for a long time, that was enough. But the sheer complexity of what lies ahead — an aging population, a technology race that shows no sign of slowing, and a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area offering an abundance of new opportunities — needs a much more structured approach.
Drafting a local plan that fits within the national 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) doesn’t mean Hong Kong is abandoning what made it successful. It’s the city recognizing that the next chapter needs a different kind of approach.
Nowhere is that reckoning more visible than in the Northern Metropolis, the 300-square-kilometer swath of the New Territories that stretches from the Deep Bay wetlands in the west to the Mirs Bay hinterland in the east.
First unveiled by then-chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in her 2021 Policy Address, the strategy was always conceived as an ambitious project, with housing and innovation as important parts. The Northern Metropolis represents Hong Kong’s most visionary attempt to rebalance its own geography — to pull economic gravity northward, closer to Shenzhen and, by extension, closer to the productive engine of the Pearl River Delta.
The 2023 Policy Address fleshed out the earlier outline with sharper zoning details, firmer timelines, and a clearer sense of how the Northern Metropolis was meant to function as an integrated economic engine. It sketched out a Northern Metropolis Action Agenda that breaks the project into four main parts: Hung Shui Kiu and Ha Tsuen, as a base for high-end professional services and logistics; the San Tin Technopole, as the centerpiece for innovation and technology (I&T); a belt along the boundary focused on commerce and industry; and a blue-green corridor built around the Deep Bay wetlands, where conservation, tourism and recreation are meant to coexist.
The sheer scale of the Northern Metropolis is transformative. Over roughly 20 years, the area is expected to accommodate about 2.5 million residents and generate some 650,000 jobs — figures that would reshape Hong Kong’s economic and demographic landscape. If delivered consistently and with focus, the plan has the potential to expand housing supply, deepen the city’s I&T base, and open new engines of growth.
What makes the project so relevant to the city’s five-year plan discussion is the extent to which its components map onto national priorities. Consider I&T: The 15th Five-Year Plan makes clear that technological capability and advanced manufacturing are central to the country’s next stage of development.
The San Tin Technopole is meant to anchor that strategy. It sits alongside the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone at Hetao, linking the two sides into what is increasingly a single research cluster. On the Shenzhen side, laboratories and startups are already operating, with work underway in biomedicine, artificial intelligence and advanced materials.
On the Hong Kong side, the Lok Ma Chau Loop is being developed to complement those efforts with upstream research powered by Hong Kong’s globally ranked universities. A five-year plan provides the government with a framework to synchronize land preparation, infrastructure delivery, and talent recruitment in a more structured manner, which is necessary for a project of this scale and ambition.
Hong Kong has never lacked energy or entrepreneurial spirit; what a five-year plan adds is the framework to organize that dynamism over time and a shared vocabulary that allows Hong Kong to coordinate more smoothly with mainland development priorities
Connectivity is another piece of the puzzle. The Northern Metropolis Action Agenda includes proposals for more rail and expanded crossing points to reduce the friction of traveling between Hong Kong’s northern districts and Shenzhen’s southern tech hubs. Incorporating that into a five-year planning cycle changes the dynamic. When infrastructure on the Hong Kong side is tied to a clear timetable, counterparts in Guangdong province and Shenzhen can plan accordingly, and predictability matters.
There is also a broader question about direction. Hong Kong knows what it is good at — finance, trade, professional services — but for years, there has been a recurring debate about what comes next. Relying on the same pillars indefinitely carries significant risk.
The Northern Metropolis is a deliberate attempt to address that risk and is designed to develop new industries at scale. It sets aside land for sectors such as life sciences, data-driven industries and advanced manufacturing, moving diversification from concept to construction. Placing those plans within a five-year framework gives them greater weight. It signals to investors and policymakers alike that the government is committed to delivering.
It is also important to be clear about Hong Kong’s unique characteristics in the Greater Bay Area. No other city combines a common law system, a freely traded currency, and deep, liquid capital markets. The Northern Metropolis does not dilute the city’s identity; it extends it. A technology corridor with world-class intellectual property protections and seamless access to Chinese mainland supply chains is a proposition that few competing jurisdictions can match.
The delegation’s April 16 visit to Beijing was, in a sense, both ceremonial and substantive — a signal of high-level coordination and a working session in which real policy details are being hammered out. No detailed outcomes have been publicly released, but the very rhythm of these exchanges — Paul Chan in Beijing in March, the broader delegation weeks later — speaks to a process that is iterative and grounded.
Hong Kong has never lacked energy or entrepreneurial spirit; what a five-year plan adds is the framework to organize that dynamism over time and a shared vocabulary that allows Hong Kong to coordinate more smoothly with mainland development priorities. For the Northern Metropolis, which will take shape over two decades and require coordination across multiple government bureaus, that longer horizon is not a luxury. It is a necessity.
Over the coming months, as Hong Kong finalizes its five-year blueprint, if the Northern Metropolis features as prominently as it should — delivering on milestones like housing about 2.5 million residents and providing 650,000 new jobs by 2046 — the plan will stand as a statement that Hong Kong’s future growth stretches north toward a border that is becoming a gateway rather than a dividing line.
The author is an international partner and member of the Global Advisory Board, MilleniumAssociates AG.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.