Hong Kong plans to publish its first “strategic, forward-looking and operable” five-year blueprint in the third quarter of this year, the city’s constitutional affairs chief has said, as authorities launched a public consultation while rejecting concerns that the move signalled a shift towards a planned economy.As the government launched a two-month public consultation on the blueprint on Monday, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Janice Tse Siu-wa stressed that the road map, designed to better align the city with national development, would “complement” Hong Kong’s annual budget and chief executive’s policy address.“The five-year plan is a high-level strategic guiding document which defines the direction of Hong Kong’s development in the next five years and outlines the key tasks,” she said during a press briefing.She described the five-year plan as a “strategic, forward-looking and operable” one that would focus on speeding up the development of innovation and technology centres as well as the Northern Metropolis, the city’s mega-infrastructure project in the New Territories.The annual policy address and budget would serve to advance the development goals and vision of the five-year plan, which aims to align with Beijing’s blueprint guiding the country’s development from 2026 to 2030, Tse said.In response to whether Hong Kong was moving towards a planned economy, Tse said the government remained committed to the “one country, two systems” governing principle that ensured the continuation of Hong Kong’s free market.“Aligning with the national 15th five-year plan does not mean replacing the free market, but clearly shapes the vision and deployment through macro-policies,” she said, adding that the blueprint would allow the market to develop more clearly and steadily.