The Zhitong Finance App learned that on November 12, Hong Kong's Deputy Secretary for Finance and Acting Secretary for Housing, Wong Wai-lun, said in her opening statement on the “Optimizing Public Housing Policy to Promote Upward Citizens' Mobility” bill proposed by Hon Leung Man-kwong that the current administration has done a great deal of work to enable citizens to live and work peacefully. Under the leadership of the Chief Executive, every effort has been made to promote public housing policies that increase quantity, speed up, improve efficiency, and improve quality, speed up meeting the housing needs of needy families, and deal in an orderly manner with the persistent housing problems that have accumulated for many years. Results have also been achieved in many areas.
I would like to share the following points with you, which I hope will help the next discussion.
First, an adequate supply of public housing is the most important foundation of housing policy. It is the core of the core. In fact, all three members of parliament mentioned it just now. There is not enough supply, and there is no way to talk about many support measures at all. For example, the simple housing system that is being promoted must have sufficient supply of public housing before it can be promoted. Therefore, ensuring the annual supply of public housing is the number one priority. In this regard, I would like to thank all sectors of the community for their joint efforts, which have also achieved certain results. According to the 2026 annual progress report of the “Long-term Housing Strategy Report”, the total housing supply target for the next ten years is 420,000 units. Among them, the public housing supply target is 294,000, while the private housing supply target is 126,000.
The supply of public housing in Hong Kong has been criticized for a long period of time, and then criticized for not being able to achieve it. It has remained slow in the past few years; indeed, it has experienced such a difficult time. With the current administration and everyone working together to focus on speeding up housing construction, the Chief Executive launched 30,000 innovative simple public housing units in the fourth quarter of 2022 to fill the gap in short-term shortages, and the supply of public housing has basically reversed the heavy situation. In the five years starting from 2027/28, an average of more than 35,000 public housing units were completed each year, an increase of about 73 percent over the corresponding five years when the current administration took office, a new high in the past 25 years.
Second, many friends in the community are concerned about whether families in need can go upstairs faster. As the supply of public housing has achieved certain results, the waiting time for public housing is also being shortened. Compared with the high of 6.1 years before the current administration took office, the overall waiting period for public housing has dropped back to 4.8 years at the end of June this year, and has been at its lowest level in more than eight years for two consecutive quarters. As more public housing projects are completed and implemented, the overall waiting period for public housing will continue to decline in the future. The Housing Authority will announce the latest waiting period until the end of September this year next week. It is hoped that it will bring further good news to the public. I am confident that the waiting time will drop to 4.5 years as proposed by the Chief Executive in the 2022 “Policy Address” by 2026/27.
Third, a clear and complete housing staircase has been established, from public housing, green housing, home, and first home to private housing. Citizens can add this property purchase ladder on any floor according to their own financial conditions and choices, and move up the stairs.
In order to further meet the public's demand for home purchases, the government will gradually increase the proportion of subsidized sales units to 40% in the public housing supply. In the five years starting from 2027/28, the Housing Authority (Hong Kong Housing Authority) and the Housing Association (Hong Kong Housing Association) will provide about 73,000 subsidized sales units, an increase of about 85% over the estimated number of houses built during the same five-year period when the current administration took office, greatly and effectively increasing the opportunities for citizens to buy homes. Other policy measures include encouraging and assisting wealthy households to buy homes, and continuously optimizing circulation arrangements in the secondary market.
As to whether to convert more rental public housing for sale, the Chief Executive has made it clear earlier that this aspect requires careful study. The Housing Authority carried out relevant research in October and distributed a questionnaire to more than 14,000 households across Hong Kong to gather opinions from people living in public rental housing, subsidizing the sale of housing, and private housing. A number of in-depth focus group discussions will also be held thereafter. Due to the large scale of the relevant research, it takes a considerable amount of time to collect data and analyze the obtained data, and it is expected that the relevant results will not be announced until next year at the earliest.