In FocusWhy does Hong Kong need a 5-year plan – and will it crimp its free-market economy?

As Hong Kong embraces long-term planning for the first time, economists and officials debate whether strategic state guidance can coexist with its open, market-led economy

As the government completes a public consultation exercise to craft the city’s own five-year plan to align with national development, the first of this

five-part series

looks at key questions, starting with the need for such a blueprint.

Economist Heiwai Tang has a line he likes to use on free-market purists: “The market is almost always right, but it’s not always right.”

“We should not be the last defender of laissez-faire, which has created a lot of prosperity for many people but has also created a lot of long-term structural problems that cannot easily be overcome by market forces,” he said.

All that may change soon if the government plays its hand well.

This is uncharted territory for Hong Kong. From the 1970s under British colonial rule to the post-handover period, the city government, characterised by its laissez-faire policy, relied on annual policy addresses and budgets for overall planning.