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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced the results of the residential mortgage survey for December 2010.
The number of new applications in December declined notably by 37.5% to 14,416. New loans approved during the month declined by 23.0% to HK$28.9 billion. Approvals for primary market transactions dropped by HK$1.4 billion, or 41.2%, while those for secondary market and refinancing transactions fell by HK$5.6 billion, or 22.2%, and HK$1.6 billion, or 18.2%, respectively. The decline in new loan applications and approvals reflects the market situation following announcement on November 19, 2010 of the measures introduced by the Government in respect of the property market and by the HKMA in relation to authorised institutions' risk management of their property related lending.
New mortgage loans drawn down during December rose by 11.3% to HK$31.0 billion compared with November.
Around 9% of the new mortgage loans approved in December were priced with reference to best lending rates, with the largest portion in the price range of 2% to less than 2.25%. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR fell to 90.0% from 91.8% in November.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 1.2% to HK$740.3 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio fell to a record low of 0.01% while the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.04% in December.
Ends/Monday, January 24, 2011
Issued at HKT 16:53
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