Nearly half of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's 36 election pledges on welfare and labour were absent from his five-year blueprint, and have not been raised since he took office in July.
There has been no mention of about 15 of his 32 election pledges on welfare over the past seven months, and two of his four labour pledges have been ignored.
But Leung said that just because a promise had not been mentioned "did not mean we will not do it in the coming … years".
In his election platform on retirement protection, Leung said he would set up a fund for the ageing population. He said ministers would consider combining benefits under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance and old-age allowance schemes. But he failed to mention the fund or benefits in his address, though the recently revived government-appointed Commission on Poverty pledged to review social security and retirement protection.
His election pledge to consider providing tax concessions to employers hiring people with disabilities was also absent from Wednesday's speech.