Huang Wai-lun: Hong Kong is fully advancing the public housing policy of "increasing quantity, speeding up, improving efficiency and enhancing quality," and results have been seen in many aspects.

On November 12, at the Legislative Council meeting, during his opening remarks on the motion moved by Honourable Leung Man-kwong on "Optimising public housing policy to promote upward social mobility," the Deputy Financial Secretary and Acting Secretary for Housing, Huang Wai-lun, said that to enable citizens to live and work in peace and contentment, the current-term government has done a great deal of work. Under the leadership of the Chief Executive, it has fully advanced the public housing policy of "increasing quantity, speeding up, improving efficiency and enhancing quality," accelerating efforts to meet the housing needs of families in need and systematically addressing the long-standing, difficult housing problems accumulated over many years, with results already seen in many aspects. I would like to share the following points with you here, in the hope that they will help the discussion that follows. First, sufficient public housing supply is the most important foundation of housing policy, the core of the core, and indeed the three Honourable Members just mentioned this. Without sufficient supply, many support measures simply cannot be discussedfor example, the simple housing unit regime currently being taken forward can only be advanced with confidence if there is sufficient public housing supply. Therefore, ensuring the annual public housing supply is the first priority. In this regard, I thank all sectors of society for their joint efforts, and certain results have already been achieved. According to the 2026 Annual Progress Report of the Long Term Housing Strategy Report, the total housing supply target for the coming ten years is 420,000 units. Among them, the public housing supply target is 294,000 units, while the private housing supply target is 126,000 units. Hong Kong's public housing supply was once criticised for a long period as being top-light and bottom-heavy, and afterwards was criticised because even the bottom-heavy target could not be achieved, and after several years it still remained lightindeed, we once went through such difficult times. With the joint efforts of the current-term government and everyone, concentrating efforts on accelerating housing construction, the Chief Executive launched an innovative 30,000 Light Public Housing units in the fourth quarter of 2022 to fill the short-term gap, and public housing supply has basically reversed the top-light and bottom-heavy situation. In the five years starting from 2027/28, the average number of public housing units completed each year will exceed 35,000, an increase of about 73 percent over the corresponding five-year completion volume when the current-term government took office, and a new high in the past 25 years. Second, many friends in society are concerned about whether families in need can be allocated flats faster. As public housing supply has achieved certain results, the public housing waiting time is also shortening. Compared with the high of 6.1 years before the current-term government took office, the overall composite waiting time for public rental housing has fallen to 4.8 years as at the end of June this year, remaining at the lowest level in more than eight years for two consecutive quarters. As more public housing projects are completed and occupied, the composite waiting time for public rental housing will continue to trend downward in the future. The Housing Bureau will announce next week the latest waiting time as at the end of September this year, and I hope it will bring further good news to the public. I am confident that the target set by the Chief Executive in the 2022 Policy Addressthat by 2026/27, the waiting time will fall to 4.5 yearswill be achieved. Third, a clear and complete housing ladder has been established, from public rental housing, Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Scheme, Home Ownership Scheme, and Starter Homes to private residential properties. Citizens can join this home ownership ladder at any level according to their own economic conditions and choices, and climb up step by step to achieve upward mobility. To further meet citizens' home ownership needs, the government will gradually increase the proportion of subsidised sale units in public housing supply to 40 percent. In the five years starting from 2027/28, the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society will provide about 73,000 subsidised sale units, an increase of about 85 percent over the estimated construction volume for the same five-year period when the current-term government took office, substantially and effectively increasing citizens' opportunities for home ownership. Other policy measures also include encouraging and assisting better-off tenants to purchase homes, and continuously optimising the arrangements for circulation in the secondary market. As to whether more public rental housing will be converted to sale, the Chief Executive has earlier clearly pointed out that this aspect requires careful study. The Housing Bureau launched the relevant research in October, distributing questionnaires to more than 14,000 households across Hong Kong to collect views, including those of residents living in public rental housing, subsidised sale housing, and private housing, and will subsequently conduct a number of in-depth focus group discussions. As the relevant study is large in scale and requires considerable time to collect information and analyse the data obtained, it is expected that the relevant results will be announced at the earliest next year.