Henderson Land Chairman Lee Shau Kee stands next to a scale model of one of his company's new residential housing projects at Tuesday's annual general meeting in Hong Kong. Edmond Tang / China Daily

Association says it cannot issue guidelines governing completed transactions

As the administration's late April announcement of various measures aiming at enhancing market transparency in the property transaction process took effect Tuesday, the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong (the Association) has issued the relevant guidelines governing the pre-sales property transactions on the same day.

However, the Association cannot issue guidelines governing the completed property transactions, as this involves technical difficulties and legal problems.

The Association said that it will liaise with the Transport and Housing Bureau to solve the problems.

"The Association in principle is supporting the measures and is cooperating with the administration constantly to increase market transparency so that it will make self-regulation more effective and so that it will also monitor its members to execute the measures," the Association said in a statement.

Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng has detailed the exact worries of the Association concerning the regulation of the completed property transactions.

"Concerning the guidelines on regulating the completed property transactions, the developers may face the situation that some properties have existed for over 20 years and that they will put up few apartments for sale. In certain cases, the developers will sell those flats only to their rental clients, so that the developers may not be clear whether these also need guideline regulation," Cheng explained.

On Tuesday, Cheng attended the Housing Authority meeting on the consultation of subsidized housing and answered media enquiries concerning the property market after the meeting.

"The principle of introducing the new measures does not aim at curbing property prices, but instead to improve transparency in the property market," Cheng maintained.

Meanwhile, Lee Shau Kee, chairman of Henderson Land Development Company (Henderson Land) cautioned that the company may slow the pace of launching new flats after the implementation of the new measures.

Lee admitted that the measures have created some inconveniences for developers, but that in general they will follow the measures, since this can promote greater transparency in the market.

Lee attended the company's annual general meeting on Tuesday and briefed the press concerning the latest business development of the blue-chip property developer.

Lee disclosed that Henderson Land will have a developable land bank of 32 million square feet of gross floor area that can be developed into approximately 45,000 residential flats of 700 to 800 square feet each in the next couple of years.

The land bank includes 40 residential reconstruction projects and agricultural plots that can be developed into residential projects after the related land premium payment.

"The 45,000 residential flat supply of Henderson Land, plus the supply from other developers, means an abundant supply in residential flats in the next few years. Therefore, I predict the prices of average residential flats will not rise by much. Prices of luxurious flats should fare better," Lee said, adding that he is still confident about the local property market.

China Daily

(HK Edition 06/02/2010 page3)