Boosting Land Supply 'not About Controlling Prices'

The development minister, Bernadette Linn, on Sunday played down the idea that increasing land supply for housing will make homes cheaper, saying the policy is intended to serve society's needs, not rein in prices.

She made the comment while discussing the government's plan to provide some 3,200 hectares of land for flats in the coming decade.

Government figures show that property prices have fallen by 8.1 percent in the first nine months of the year.

Asked whether housing supply going forward would drive prices down further, Linn said it would in theory, but in reality there are many factors affecting home prices, such as the external environment, interest rates and public sentiment.

"As the bureau responsible for land supply, we do so not to control home prices. We do it to take care of the needs of different sectors - housing, economy, industrial development - all these things require land," the minister said.

"So we always remember, we can't let fluctuation in prices affect our sustained effort of providing land."

Asked whether the government is starting to look at developing the fringes of country parks, Linn said officials would first focus their efforts on studying the development of 250 hectares of green-belt land.

She said that's because it would take quite a long period of time to look at the fringes of Hong Kong's country parks. She also stressed that developing individual plots on country park peripheries was different from developing the parks themselves.