Sustainable Living Hong Kong

Today’s paper reads like a special supplement on an issue that’s been plaguing Hong Kong, but readers will only know this if they’re able to connect some dots for themselves.

So, what are in the news? Here they are:

• Hong Kong’s billionaires now have a combined worth of US$135 billion; the majority have made their fortune through property development in Hong Kong and China
• Hopewell Holdings reported a 171% rise in profits based on fair value gain from a Happy Valley luxury residential project due to the property boom
• Executive councillor Leung Chun-ying blames the collapse of the old building in To Kwa Wan on the widening wealth gap
• Financial Secretary John Tsang expected to dish out sweeteners in his budget speech but Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung ruled out revival of the Home Ownership Scheme or Home Starter Loan Scheme, saying the government was not in a position to lend money for property purchases and advising people to consider affordability before buying a property instead
• Deloitte forecast a modest surplus for this financial year because of increased revenue from land premiums and stamp duty
• Wharf (Holdings) confirmed it and partner China Merchants Group had forfeited a HK$245 million deposit on a mainland site they had bought in 2007 but not yet developed

When you have connected the dots, what’s the picture you see?

Developers are making so much money they can afford to forfeit HK$245 million on land they’d bought to add to their land bank. Yet, even as they become world-class billionaires, there are those who can only afford to live in a crumbling old building while the government tells them: “Sorry, can’t help you.”

Well, except to send those who lived in the To Kwa Wan building to public housing far away, despite their pleas to stay in the district in which they’d always lived – perhaps to make way for another luxury residential project that would ensure the billionaires’ place on the Forbes list while matters get worse for the low-income residents as they find themselves having to shoulder more travel costs to commute back to the urban centre to work.

Leung Chun-ying rightly pointed out that sweeteners wouldn’t solve the problem of poverty, but what measures would the former surveyor propose to solve the issue of wealth distribution? Would he risk offending his former colleagues to argue for a restructuring that would address the injustice inherent in a system in which a government dependent on land premiums and stamp duty for much of its revenue is effectively in league with the property sector, to the detriment of the public good?