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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the results of the residential mortgage survey for April 2011.
New mortgage loans drawn down during April decreased by 12.1% to HK$26.9 billion compared with March.
New loans approved in April fell by 36.7% to HK$27.6 billion. Approvals for primary market transactions and secondary market transactions decreased by HK$1.3 billion (22.1%) and HK$11.0 billion (38.8%) respectively, and those for refinancing transactions decreased by HK$3.7 billion or 39.2%. The number of new applications decreased by 36.2% in April to 14,782.
Around 9% of the new mortgage loans approved in April 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 decreased to 89.8% from 91.7% in March.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 1.1% to HK$770.2 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio increased slightly to 0.02% while the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.03% in April.
Ends/Monday, May 23, 2011
Issued at HKT 17:05
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