SHKP profits up 60 per cent as it goes all out to build more flats

Sun Hung Kai Properties yesterday posted a record interim result, adding that it believed there would be a supply of about 30,000 new homes in the next financial year.

'The new housing supply will be more than double the current [financial] year. It will help stabilise home prices in the long term,' Thomas Kwok, vice-chairman and managing director of Hong Kong's biggest developer by market value, said.

The supply of new homes for the financial year, which ends on March 31, stands at 12,000.

SHKP is the first developer to echo the ambitious goal of helping to make 30,000 to 40,000 units available annually. Surveyors and legislators have voiced doubts about the target.

Kwok said the company would actively participate in upcoming land auctions. 'We are interested in all sites available for sale,' he said.

Helped by the spike in home prices last year, the developer posted a 60 per cent jump in underlying profit - core earnings from property sales and rental income - to HK$10.41 billion for the six months to December.

Fuelled by low interest rates, an influx of mainland buyers and short supply, home prices rose 20 per cent in the last six months of last year. During the period, SHKP's property sales soared 319 per cent to HK$8.91 billion and rental income rose 16 per cent to HK$4.61 billion.