JONATHAN CHENG
The International Monetary Fund expressed concern about spiraling asset prices in Hong Kong, adding a prominent voice to a heated local debate about whether the government should be doing more to prevent a housing bubble.
Hong Kong's extremely low interest rates and easy lending policies are prompting "a sharp run-up in prices for certain real and financial assets," the IMF warned Tuesday. "There is a risk that prices could become driven more by short-term liquidity conditions, divorced from fundamental forces of supply and demand," the IMF wrote.
Public concern has been rising after a surge of some 30% in the residential market this year, capped by a number of record transactions in the luxury market. Lawmakers last month organized a march on Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang's residence to push the government to increase land supply.
The IMF said it supported "increasing the supply of land to the market as one of the possible means to help moderate potential property price surges." So far, however, Mr. Tsang has resisted calls to make more land available for development through public auctions. In a speech Monday, he said the government was prepared to "stabilize the market if needed."
Kwok Ka-ki, a former lawmaker who organized last month's housing protest, said even the IMF as an outsider could see that more land supply was needed. "Donald Tsang says that he's concerned about property prices, but nothing has been done -- zero," Mr. Kwok said.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority last month tightened home loans for luxury properties, requiring a 40% down payment instead of the previous 30%. But the impact of the new requirement will likely be limited, Paul Schulte, an analyst for Nomura recently wrote, since luxury buyers are less dependent on credit for home purchases.
Mr. Schulte believes new land sales are necessary, and that without them Hong Kong's large pool of deposits, low interest rates and deep well of mainland Chinese buyers will continue to exert upward pressure on prices.
The IMF blamed the price run-up on low interest rates imported from the U.S., saying that "the implications of the resulting high level of liquidity will have to be deftly managed." Hong Kong's currency is pegged to the dollar through a currency board system, which means its interest rates closely track those in the U.S.
The HKMA says luxury home prices are now at a historic peak, surpassing their levels after the last great run-up in the mid-1990s.
Write to Jonathan Cheng at jonathan.cheng@wsj.com
没有评论:
发表评论