City Beat | End of an era, or just the passing of the torch? Economic reliance on housing shows no sign of slowing despite retirement of Hong Kong’s second-richest man

It does signal the end of an era in the sense that a prominent, first-generation property tycoon passes on the reins of his business empire to his heirs, just as the city’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, did two years ago.

But it also throws up the bigger question as to whether the era of Hong Kong’s reliance on property as a pillar industry is ever going to end.

Runaway home prices remain a notorious problem that keeps haunting the government, despite relentless efforts by successive administrations to tame them.

While the serious shortage of land is the obvious culprit for the current situation, it is also a result of Hong Kong’s decades-long, property-driven development model, based on a long-running, high-land-price policy.