Following is the transcript of media session by the Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, Mr Michael Suen, at the Central Government Offices after he delivered a statement on the implementation and consolidation of Housing policy at the Legislative Council today (October 15):
Reporter: Can you explain why the land application programme would be resumed and can you elaborate on the programme?
Mr Suen: As I have said, the main crux of the message is that we are going to regulate the supply of land through the two railway corporations. We all know that there are many railway stations which provide space upon which we can build flats. We have reached agreements with the two railway corporations so that they can defer the commencement of those flats according to a phase programme so that the first batch will not become available until after 2007 or 2008. That's what we have agreed with the MTRC and KCRC.
Reporter: You have mentioned a number of measures. Can you explain how effective they are in stimulating the property market?
Mr Suen: These are not really measures as such. I emphasized time and again this is a statement of our policy. I do believe that it is important that we give the clear impresssion to the public that there is consistency in government policy. That's what we have done. We are reinstating what we have introduced last year. We are introducing additional measures to enable the effects of what we announced in terms of our policy to be felt with greater magnitude this year. I hope the market will accept that. By so doing, we are creating a favourable environment and provide the right conditions for the market to operate and keep government intervention to the minimum.
Reporter: Actually some people are expecting more measures to be implemented, like decreasing the stamp duty and the mortgage ceiling. Do you think these measures will still be considered in the near future?
Mr Suen: I don't think we will consider them again in the near future. We have given it very thorough consideration. For various reasons we have not introduced them mainly because they will reduce revenue which is inappropriate at this particular point of time.
Reporter: Will you be turning some of the HOS flats into hostels? What is your plan?
Mr Suen: We are going to invite expression of interest over the next week. The intention is really to gauge the feasibility of this proposal and also more importantly to find out whether in fact there are people interested in this scheme. I must emphasis that this is not a tender. This is an invitation of expression of interest.
Reporter: Can you tell us how many flats will be involved?
Mr Suen: I don't think we are talking about more than a few hundred flats.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript)
End/Wednesday, October 15, 2003
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