Hong Kong chief policy chief outlines first five-year plan at 'One Country, Two Systems' forum
The head of Hong Kong's Task Force on Policy Address said the city's first five-year plan aligns with national development goals, citing gold trading and supply chain services as examples. He described the plan as a practical tool for implementing the 'one country, two systems' principle under the N
The head of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government's Task Force on Policy Address delivered a speech on 24 October at the 2026 'One Country, Two Systems' academic seminar, outlining how the city's first five-year plan aligns with national development strategies. The speech focused on three points: proactive alignment with national planning, specific implementation examples, and the plan's role in demonstrating the advantages of the 'one country, two systems' principle.
The official noted that Article 37 of the National Development Planning Law, passed in March, stipulates that the state supports Hong Kong and Macao in proactively aligning with national development plans. He said Chief Executive Lee Ka-chiu published the 'Hong Kong First Five-Year Plan' on 16 September, alongside the policy address, as a concrete step to implement this legal requirement. The plan, he said, represents a 'design blueprint' while the policy address serves as a 'construction blueprint'.
Two examples of alignment were provided. The first is the development of a commodity trading ecosystem, with gold as a starting point. The official said the policy group has set a target of storing over 2,000 tonnes of gold within three years, and a gold central clearing system began trial operations in July. The 2026 policy address set a target for the system's official launch in the first quarter of 2027. The second example is supply chain services, where a task force established in 2025 has helped more than 340 mainland Chinese companies list in Hong Kong, with about 30 per cent setting up regional or international headquarters.
The official also cited three cross-border cooperation projects under the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area framework. The Dongguan Air Cargo Centre, a sea-air intermodal project, is expected to reach an annual handling capacity of one million tonnes when its first permanent facility becomes operational in June 2027. The port cluster development strategy focuses on high-value shipping services such as ship management and marine insurance. A cross-border carbon market initiative, involving the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited's Core Climate platform, recently began pilot trading of green electricity certificates from mainland China.
The speech concluded by describing the five-year plan as a 'new institutional vehicle' for implementing the 'one country, two systems' principle, which the official said President Xi Jinping has described as a good system for maintaining stability, serving national development, and enabling peaceful coexistence of different systems.
