Hong Kong might be heading for a recession after months of protests, but that has not stopped one businessman from paying almost US$1 million for a parking spot.
The mind-boggling sum paid by Johnny Cheung Shun-yee (張順宜) highlights the gaping inequality that has helped fuel nearly five months of demonstrations in the territory, where one in five people live below the poverty line.
The HK$7.6 million (US$969,327) price tag is more than 30 times the average annual wage in Hong Kong and about the same as a one-bed flat in London’s Chelsea area.
It is situated in The Centre, the territory’s fifth-highest skyscraper, which hit the headlines in October 2017, when it became the world’s most expensive office building after Hong Kong’s richest man sold it for more than US$5 billion.
The purchase came even though there are growing concerns about the effects of the pro-democracy demonstrations on the territory’s real-estate market, with property firms’ share prices plunging in the past few months as they are forced to offer discounts on new projects and cut office rents.
The economy has been tipped to grow up to just 1 percent this year, the worst rate since 2009 during the global financial crisis.
“A lot of those owners in The Centre are in finance or in other high-growth businesses,” Centaline Commercial managing director Stanley Poon (潘志明) said. “To these tycoons, it’s not a significant purchase if you compare it to the value of the office floors they own.”
Hong Kong’s white-hot property market has become a political issue as costs continue to soar, forcing some small businesses to close due to sky-high rents, while many residents cannot afford to buy or lease decent homes.
Commercial and residential property prices have been fueled by an influx of money from wealthy Chinese investors and developers.
While the long-running protests in the territory are fired mostly by anger at a now-withdrawn extradition bill, and hatred toward the government and police, they are also fanned by anger at the huge disparity between rich and poor.
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