HK to increase land, housing supply to cool down property market

Source:Xinhua Published: 2013-2-27 19:05:08

Hong Kong's financial chief John Tsang said Wednesday in his budget speech that the city is to speed up the supply of residential land and private housing.

"I shall continue with my co-ordination work to expand the land reserve as in the past two years. I shall also allocate additional resources to the relevant departments to increase their manpower in order to speed up land supply," Tsang told lawmakers at the city's Legislative Council.

Regarding land supply for private housing, Tsang said in the coming fiscal year, "all the major sources of land supply for private housing together will provide land capable of building some 25,800 private residential flats".

On public housing, the government has provided the Housing Authority with adequate land to build 79,000 public rental housing flats within five years from 2012-13, and about 17,000 Home Ownership Scheme flats within four years from 2016-17, said Tsang.

According to Tsang, increasing supply is the key to cool down the over-heated property market.

"In the next three to four years, it is estimated that a total of 67,000 first-hand units would come onto the private residential property market, the highest since September 2007," he unveiled, adding that approximately 24,000 first-hand units can be offered for sale this year.

Apart from housing land, the government is also committed to increasing the supply of commercial land to provide room for further development of different economic activities in Hong Kong, Tsang continued.

Posted in: Industries

blog comments powered by Disqus