The new SAR Government should limit intervention in the local property market in an attempt to cool property prices or root out speculators, according to Chi Cheung Investment Co's chairman and chief executive Paul Ng Kwok-cheung.
Mr Ng said drastic measures aimed at curbing prices or dampening sentiment would cause a loss of confidence in Hong Kong.
'A correction in prices is healthy, but if the measures are too drastic they will affect the economy, and not just market prices would drop but confidence as well.' Mr Ng said measures such as a capital-gains tax on speculators, extending the period of pre-sale consent or tightening the mortgage-lending ceiling were ill conceived.
'You cannot change certain things just because you want lower prices,' he said.
Mr Ng said the SAR Government needed to take a step-by-step approach if it wanted to rein in prices and dampen speculation.
A more moderate step would be for the Government to introduce a two or three year schedule of land to be auctioned, as opposed to the current policy of releasing a yearly time table, he said.
'If they had a schedule for two or three years I can tell you definitely that prices would stabilise,' he said.
