When he was elevated to the top financial post in late 1995, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen said he wanted to keep his job over the following five years.
He was tipped to be Anson Chan Fang On-sang's successor as Chief Secretary, but that was scuppered when she accepted Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's invitation to stay on until 2002. Now, with his fifth Budget on the drawing board, Mr Tsang has reportedly said in private that he will stick to his plan, and his next Budget will be his last.
He has had a more turbulent time than other financial secretaries. As the first ethnic Chinese in the job, he faced unprecedented problems in managing finance and surviving the sovereignty changeover after he took over from Sir Hamish MacLeod.
In the face of a sceptical Beijing leadership, Mr Tsang had to quell the conspiracy theory that the colonial administration would deplete its coffers before the changeover.
In the recession that followed on the heels of the handover, he has had to juggle a deficit rather than having the easier task of deciding how to spend the previous surpluses.
And unlike many of his senior colleagues, the flamboyant mandarin found his job more vulnerable to the political fallout of Sino-British diplomatic game. Rumours were rife within the pro-Beijing circle that he was among the 'top three' who must be removed. The others were in the posts of Chief Secretary and of Attorney-General, now renamed Secretary for Justice.
Bearing in mind the practical difficulties of introducing drastic changes to the Budget formulation, Mr Tsang set his sights beyond 1997 so that he had ample time to put his thoughts into the management of finance.