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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 December declined by 5.8% to HK$19.7 billion compared with November.
New loans approved fell by 6.2% to HK$24.2 billion. The decrease was broad-based. Approvals for primary market transactions declined by HK$0.1 billion or 3.1%, approvals for secondary market transactions declined by HK$0.7 billion or 4.1%, and approvals for refinancing loans declined by HK$0.8 billion or 14.6%. The number of new applications rose to 15,368 from 14,418 in November.
Around 37.4% of the new mortgage loans approved were priced with reference to best lending rates in December, the majority of which were in the price range of 2% to less than 2.25%. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR rose to 61.6% in December from 56.6% in November.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.6% to HK$640.9 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio fell to 0.03% and 0.09% respectively in December.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1802 or
Yokee Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1213
Ends/Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Issued at HKT 16:36
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