Hong Kong leader rejects calls to drop property cooling measures after association head says decade-old curbs ‘prevent Earth from spinning’

Plea from real estate developer group rebuffed as Chief Executive John Lee says measures introduced to discourage property speculation ‘still applicable’

Experts say market has stabilised somewhat but prices still beyond reach of most ordinary residents

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Economic recovery in the city will take time, the association head says. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 5:07pm, 18 Apr 2023Updated: 12:22am, 19 Apr 2023

Hong Kong’s leader has rebuffed a renewed call by the association representing the city’s developers to remove the existing property cooling measures as it argued the market was still struggling with no signs of a recovery until the last quarter of the year.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Tuesday said the measures were “still applicable” after Stewart Leung Chi-kin, chairman of the executive committee of the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong, urged authorities to gradually end the curbs as they were “preventing the Earth from spinning”.

Leung also predicted the property market would only show “obvious” improvements in September as recovery took time.

He said the current state of the real estate market was merely passable, adding conditions were suitable for first time homebuyers. The city’s economy still needed time to recover after three years of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.

Stewart Leung, chairman of the executive committee of the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

“Real estate relies on the economy,” he said. “The sector cannot improve if the economy has not picked up.”

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