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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 2008 decreased by 11% to HK$7.2 billion compared with November 2008.
New loans approved increased by 22.8% to HK$10.4 billion. The increase was due to increases of HK$1 billion (+71.3%) in approvals for primary market transactions and of HK$1.1 billion (+18.8%) in approvals for the secondary market, which more than offset the HK$0.1 billion (-8.7%) reduction in approvals for refinancing loans. The number of new applications increased by 14.8%.
The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate fell to 3.3% from 15% in November, while the proportion of new approvals priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate rose to 17.7% from 9% over the same period.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans decreased by 2.1% to HK$588 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio remained unchanged at 0.05% while the rescheduled loan ratio rose slightly to 0.14%. The combined ratio rose to 0.19% from 0.18% in November.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Communications Chief, at 2878 1480 or
Peggy Lo, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1687
Ends/Thursday, January 29, 2009
Issued at HKT 17:25
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