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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
According to the 23 authorized institutions (AIs) which participate in the HKMA's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending, new mortgage loans drawn down during October 2008 decreased by 2.6% to HK$11.3 billion compared with September 2008.
New loans approved decreased by 5.9% to HK$13.7 billion. The decrease was mainly due to decreases of HK$0.6 billion (-5.9%) in approvals for secondary market transactions and of HK$0.3 billion (-9.4%) in approvals for refinancing loans. Meanwhile, the approval for primary market transactions remained little changed at HK$1.8 billion. The number of new applications decreased by 10.3%.
The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate decreased to 51.7% from 83.1% in September.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.5% to HK$600 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio remained unchanged at 0.05% while the rescheduled loan ratio declined to 0.13%. The combined ratio declined to a record low of 0.18% from 0.19% in September.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Communications Chief, at 2878 1480 or
Peggy Lo, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1687
Ends/Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Issued at HKT 16:31
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