********************************************************
Following is a transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, at a media session after chairing the tenth meeting of the Long Term Housing Strategy Steering Committee this afternoon (July 25):
Secretary for Transport and Housing: The Long Term Housing Strategy Steering Committee held its tenth meeting just then. The meeting lasted for four full hours. We haven't finished studying the first draft of the consultation document for Long Term Housing Strategy. We have covered slightly more than half, so we will continue our work at the next meeting which is scheduled for the 7th of August. Basically today we have come to some consensus as to the future direction of the Long Term Housing Strategy. We feel that the main problem of housing in Hong Kong today is under-supply. So we think that the Long Term Housing Strategy for the next ten years should be supply-led. Secondly, we feel that, given the current demand and the housing market situation, the government should do more in terms of providing public housing. And by public housing, we mean both public rental housing and subsidised sales housing - basically HOS (Home Ownership Scheme) and subsidised housing produced by the Housing Society. We have come to a conclusion, after very extensive discussion, that there should be a ratio between public and private housing. The ratio should be 60 to 40 for new provision in the next few years. We also agreed that the government should take a more proactive role in housing supply. I think it is what the Committee expects the government to do. We have also considered a number of other issues in relation to how to meet the demand of households in sub-divided units, those elderly people and also the non-elderly singletons. We have considered a few solutions but we haven't finished the discussion. We will continue the discussion at the next meeting. In terms of the overall supply target, we still base it on our previous estimation which is 447,000 as the supply target. But today we have had some extensive discussion, so we will see whether that target needs to be further refined. But in any case, in the final consultation document, we will put forward the target as well as the methodology for reaching that target.
Reporter: (About solution for sub-divided units)
Secretary for Transport and Housing: We have several considerations. First of all, within the current Quota and Points system for the non-elderly single persons, whether we could adjust the system by way of refining the allocation of points as well as slightly adjusting the overall quota, whether that could help to speed up the waiting time for those single persons aged 35 and above, may be by phases if necessary. We have also considered the possibility of making use of some spare land in existing public housing estates for developing blocks for single people. But, of course, we are aware that this is likely to be rather contentious, particularly in the public housing estate concerned. So, we would give fuller consideration to this idea. In our final consultation document, of course we will put forward the pros and cons of various possible solutions.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, July 25, 2013
Issued at HKT 22:55
NNNN
