Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung and Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng welcomed the passage of the 14th Five-Year Plan by the National People's Congress today, saying it indicated the central government’s strong support to Hong Kong.

Mr Cheung said: “Since the Outline of the National 12th Five-Year Plan, the central government has fully positioned Hong Kong's role in planning and taking forward the country's overall development.

“The 14th Five-Year Plan continues to incorporate the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in various areas, demonstrating the central government's strong support for maintaining Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability and providing an historic opportunity for the future development of Hong Kong. It also enables Hong Kong to complement the overall national development strategies under ‘one country, two systems’.”

Noting that the Hong Kong SAR Government attaches great importance to Hong Kong's integration into the nation's overall development, he said the five-year plan has included the support for the development of a high-quality Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), the support for building the city as an international innovation and technology hub, enhancing its status as an international aviation hub, and developing it into an exchange centre for arts and culture between China and the rest of the world.

In the opening year of the 14th Five-Year Plan this year, Hong Kong will actively integrate into the nation's overall development, fully participate in the development of the GBA, and seize the important opportunities that cannot be missed in the further reform and opening up of the country, Mr Cheung said.

He added that the city will capitalise on its strengths to serve the nation's needs and play its vital role as a "participant" in domestic circulation and a "facilitator" in international circulation in the country's economic development.

The Secretary for Justice said the 14th Five-Year Plan demonstrates the central government’s explicit support to Hong Kong to establish as the centre for international legal and dispute resolution services in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ms Cheng noted that the Department of Justice will continue to liaise and work closely with its Mainland counterparts to implement more liberalisation measures and other new measures on legal services in the GBA to the benefit of Hong Kong's legal and dispute resolution service sector.

The department will continue to further enhance the work with the Mainland on judicial and dispute resolution matters in civil and commercial cases, as well as strengthen international and regional co-operation, fostering the city's irreplaceable position as a leading international legal hub for deal-making and dispute resolution services, she added.