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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority :
According to the 23 authorised institutions (AIs) which participate in the HKMA's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending, new mortgage loans drawn down during July decreased by 13.5% to HK$14.2 billion.
New loans approved rose by 0.7% to HK$17.4 billion. The increase was due to increases of HK$120 million (+3.6%) in approvals for primary market transactions and of HK$81 million (+2.7%) in approvals for refinancing loans, which more than offset the HK$87 million (-0.8%) decrease in approvals for secondary market transactions. The number of new applications increased by 5.0%.
The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate increased to 90.9% from 90.3% in June, while the proportion of new approvals priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate or fixed rates decreased to 5.2% from 6.2% over the same period.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.5% to HK$538.6 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio declined further to 0.14%. With the rescheduled loan ratio falling to 0.23% in July, the combined ratio improved to 0.38%*. All the three ratios reached record lows in July.
* Not the sum of the two ratios, due to rounding.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Sara Yip, Manager (Press), at 2878 8246 or
Hing-fung Wong, Officer (Press), at 2878 1802
Ends/Friday, August 24, 2007
Issued at HKT 16:35
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