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A HIGH-POWERED official with exclusive responsibility for housing will be a key part of the Government's long-awaited package of measures to tackle rising property prices.

  The move will revive the post of housing secretary six years after it was scrapped and put the official in charge of both public and private housing.

  The number of flats available under the sandwich-class housing scheme will also be sharply boosted, if the package is approved by the Executive Council on Tuesday.

  The Government then hopes to announce the measures in the Legislative Council on Wednesday.

  Other parts of the package will speed up the redevelopment of land and streamline approval of new projects.

  One proposal will make it easier to modify land leases, an essential step in transforming old industrial land into housing developments.

  There will also be anti-speculation measures, including a cut in the maximum time flats can be sold before completion and restrictions on the resale of flats privately sold by property developers through the system known as internal trading.

  As previously revealed in the Sunday Morning Post, the package will also sharply cut the number of flats available for internal trading and increase the minimum deposit for pre-sale flats.

  However, the Government has dropped an earlier proposal to use the stamp duty system to penalise speculators and there will be no punitive fiscal measures in the package.

  The announcement is to be accompanied by a blunt warning that the Government will consider further steps for the autumn if these measures fail to hold property prices down.

  Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands Tony Eason, who will hand responsibility for housing to the new policy secretary, last night praised the creation of the new post.

  ''It's the best choice at this stage,'' he said. ''Housing is one of the principal concerns of the local community and having a separate policy secretary to handle it will allow as much time to be devoted to the issue as it needs.''   The new post will be put in place only after legislators return from their summer recess, since it needs the approval of the Legislative Council's Finance Committee and Establishment Sub-Committee.

  It will also need the endorsement of the Ross Committee, which is part of the Public Services Commission.

  It is understood the idea was the brainchild of Chief Secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang and Financial Secretary Sir Hamish Macleod and has also been warmly endorsed by Governor Chris Patten.

  The Secretary for Housing post was abolished in 1988 to make way for the autonomous Housing Authority. At the time, the post was responsible only for public housing, but was invariably filled by heavyweights such as former Chief Secretary Sir David Ford.

  Although the Government has yet to consider who to put into the new position, it is thought likely to prefer an experienced policy secretary.

  There were suggestions yesterday that the early front runners for the post are Home Affairs Secretary Michael Suen Ming-yeung and Recreation and Culture Secretary James So Yiu-cho. Both have housing experience and are due a move after several years in their present posts.

  Another potential contender is Education director Dominic Wong Shing-wah.

  The creation of the new post is expected to spark fears among some Housing Authority members that the powerful body, which reports directly to the Governor, will lose some of its autonomy.

  But Mr Eason said they had nothing to fear.

    ''They will benefit from having a policy secretary within the administration who is wholly devoted to their needs,'' he said. ''They should think of it in terms of a partnership rather than who is the boss.'' 



New official to head war on home prices