China's five-year plans used to be about grain harvests and steel production quotas -- communist obsessions that seemed remote to the concerns of the business-savvy masses in Hong Kong and other capitalists across the world.
But this Asian financial capital, which returned to Chinese control in 1997, is getting serious about the latest blueprint from Beijing. The Hong Kong government is holding a summit about it today with business leaders, economists and academics. Newspapers are running front-page stories and editorials about the grand plan.
"I think the whole world should be reading these five-year plans," said corporate leader Victor Fung, who admitted he had not taken the plans seriously until recently.
Fung said that even in today's fast-changing world, the Chinese government sticks to the plans religiously, giving companies a clear indication of where it sees the booming economy heading.
"The Chinese don't change. You can see what they're going to do. They tell you up front," said Fung, group chairman of the Li & Fung Group, one of Hong Kong's oldest trading companies.
China is already on its 11th five-year plan, which was adopted late last year and runs through 2010. It calls for a speed-up in financial reforms, faster development of energy resources, measures to spur domestic consumer demand and rural reforms to narrow the yawning gap in income between the cities and countryside.
Robert Kapp, a US business consultant, said the latest plan was interesting because it's not an old-fashioned Stalinist plan heavy on commands.
As China moves toward a more market-oriented economy, the central government must use a lighter touch and try to guide the provinces rather than ordering them what to do, he said.
"It lays out broad thematic goals for the economy and trajectories the government hopes the society will travel," said Kapp, who headed the US-China Business Council from 1994 through 2004.
The plans highlight Hong Kong's tricky relationship with China. When the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, it was allowed to keep its capitalist ways and its legal system.
Hong Kong companies are among the biggest investors in the mainland and the city's stock market serves as a major fundraising platform for Chinese companies.
The Hong Kong Economic Journal, widely read by intellectuals and business leaders, said in a recent front-page editorial that it's time for the city to play a bigger role in writing the next plan. The paper warned that China's future financial reforms might erode Hong Kong's role as a global finance center.
"Amid these big changes, if Hong Kong can't play a proactive role in drafting the nation's plans," the editorial said, "then the possibility of becoming marginalized will become extremely big."
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