*****************************************************
The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA):
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 February 2009 increased by 15.7% to HK$7.1 billion compared with January 2009.
New loans approved increased by 1.5% to HK$11.4 billion. The increase was due to increases of HK$0.2 billion (+2.8%) in approvals for secondary-market transactions and of HK$0.2 billion (+23.5%) for refinancing loans. The increases more than offset a decrease of HK$0.2 billion (-11.1%) in approvals for primary-market transactions. The number of new applications declined slightly to 8,445 compared with 8,520 in January.
The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate (mostly HIBOR) increased further to 32.0% in February from 28.4% in January.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans remained little changed at HK$587 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio increased slightly to 0.06% while the rescheduled loan ratio decreased to 0.13%. The combined ratio remained stable at 0.19%.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Peggy Lo, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1687 or
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1802
Ends/Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Issued at HKT 17:46
NNNN
