Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam postpones policy address to next month after Xi Jinping’s Shenzhen celebratory visit confirmed

Chief executive’s policy address will now be by end November, rather than Wednesday as set, amid diary clash with Shenzhen 40th anniversary event

Lam says main reason for delay is to feed new measures set to emerge from Beijing talks into her address

6-MIN READ6-MIN

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam told the press on Monday that Wednesday’s policy address was not going ahead as planned. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 10:20am, 12 Oct 2020Updated: 5:59pm, 3 Nov 2020

Hong Kong’s leader has abruptly postponed her Wednesday policy address, citing the need to secure more opportunities for the city’s post-pandemic recovery from Beijing, and will instead spend the day with President Xi Jinping in Shenzhen to celebrate its 40th anniversary as a special economic zone.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor revealed in a hastily arranged press briefing on Monday that her most important speech of the year laying out her policies would be pushed back to the end of November.

“There is absolutely no intention on my part to belittle my own policy address,” Lam said, rejecting criticism for delaying it for the first time in the city’s history.

The postponement was made public two hours after state media reported that Xi would officiate a ceremony to mark the four-decade milestone for Hong Kong’s neighbour on Wednesday, which would clash with Lam’s policy address as originally scheduled.

But Lam insisted the primary reason for the delay was to attend meetings in Beijing later this month on developing the Greater Bay Area – a scheme integrating Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and eight other southern Chinese cities into a finance and technology hub. This would be a key economic force for accelerating the recovery of Hong Kong and the nation, she said, and would have implications for her own policy address.

“I have been putting forward proposals for the central people’s government to consider, and they have responded positively lately with the suggestion that since the proposals … encompass a range of subjects, the best way forward is for the chief executive to go to Beijing and personally explain why these measures are important for Hong Kong,” Lam said.