Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) yesterday said the territory was at a new starting point for development under the National Security Law imposed last year, and that her priority would be to focus on tackling a long-standing housing shortage.
Hong Kong and Beijing authorities have long blamed unaffordable housing in the former British colony for deep-rooted social problems that they say helped fuel pro-democracy protests in 2019.
“Fortunately, the implementation of the National Security Law and the improvement to our electoral system have restored safety and stability in society. Hong Kong is now ready again for a new start for economic development,” Lam said in her annual policy address.
Photo: AFP
Beijing imposed the law on Hong Kong in June last year. It punishes what authorities broadly define as secession, sedition and collusion with foreign forces with sentences of up to life in prison.
Critics say it is being used to crush freedoms promised under the “one country, two systems” formula agreed upon when the territory was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Beijing and the Hong Kong government say the law is needed to safeguard prosperity and stability, and guard against outside interference.
Lam’s focus in her speech was on ensuring affordable housing to the territory’s 7.5 million people.
“Providing decent accommodation for all is the primary goal of my housing policy. Noting the public concern on the matter, I reviewed the progress and set out my vision on the issue,” she said.
Private home prices hit a record high in July, buoyed by limited housing supply and large flows of capital from Chinese buyers.
Making housing more affordable has been a priority for all of Hong Kong’s leaders since 1997, although the prospect of owning a home is still a distant dream for many.
Even residents with good jobs and salaries have struggled to get on the property ladder.
Last month, Reuters reported that Beijing had in a series of meetings this year given a new mandate to the territory’s powerful tycoons, saying they should pour resources and influence into helping solve the housing shortage.
The average waiting time for public housing in Hong Kong has climbed steadily and now stands at more than 5.5 years.
Compounding the problem, home prices in former farming areas about an hour’s commute from the heart of the financial center have also surged, buoyed in part by Chinese parents eager to educate their children in the territory.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS