Think twice before helping the middle class with housing
Updated: 2013-01-03 06:54
By Eddy Li(HK Edition)
|
|||||||
Happy New Year and best wishes to all China Daily readers! I hope the New Year will bring the HKSAR government a new beginning - wholeheartedly serving Hong Kong people, earning achievements to benefit the public and free of the control of politicians who only know how to filibuster.
Two weeks to go before Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying delivers his first policy address. How well will the plan be received? How will it set out the blueprint for this year's development and for the long-term prospects of our city, fit the actual demand of citizens or the promises Leung made during the campaign? These are the key points of interest.
A while ago, the government was consulting different communities in society, seeking input on the policy address. The general idea in business circles is that in recent years, increasing politicization has impeded the natural development of Hong Kong's economy. Businessmen have expectations for the new government to bring order out of chaos to get Hong Kong back on the track to economic development and the improvement of people's living. I handed in a proposal to the CE with several specific suggestions in the economic domain, including promoting wholesale business, providing more lands for hotels, providing more convention and exhibition areas, finishing the new cruise terminal and supporting commercial facilities as soon as possible, etc.
On top of the need for re-energizing the economy, housing problems, which are closely bound up to people's life, are also very severe. The newspapers have covered many housing-related issues - cage homes, subdivided flats and cubical apartments. We are grieved by accounts of coffin-sized units and capsule-like accommodation appearing in the reports; even farmlands, fishing grounds, pigsties and chicken houses are transformed into squatters' housing.
All of these - the real cases of the hardship of finding a proper house - are conduct unbecoming to Hong Kong's identity as an international metropolis. No wonder the CE repeatedly emphasizes that "tackling the housing problem is a top priority of the current-term government and the departments concerned". He also said "the government will adopt a multi-pronged approach to restore market equilibrium", assuring that he will continue to introduce policy initiatives in a timely manner to assist the grassroots to obtain better accommodation and help middle-income families buy their own homes, as he pledged in his manifesto.
I believe in the new government's resolution to solve housing problems. The effort to increase the supply of Public Rental Housing (PRH) units, as well as the policy rolled out earlier to allowing eligible, old industrial buildings to be reconstructed to residential buildings, is a reflection that the government aims to assist the grassroots to obtain better accommodation.
As for the "help middle-income families buy their own homes" part, however, my assent is given with a hook at the end. The term of "middle-income families" implies that these families are able to support themselves for accommodation, food and other basic requirements. The government should note that the homes for this class are definitely already better than PRH units, or even second-handed houses. Here comes the question: how much public money will it cost to help them buy the relatively "luxurious" homes?
A ship rises with the tide - in whatever form, the help would only encourage the rise in property prices, and the biggest winners would only be property developers.
The gap of wealth is quite evident in Hong Kong, meaning that the middle-income class accounts for the largest percentage. If the precedent is set to assist the middle class, there will be more and more such cases. Imperceptibly, this class would become a part of government-funded range; and if they become accustomed to asking for what they want from the government in the future, can the government afford the expense?
I truly understand what it feels like to be a middle class under the current circumstances - it seems unfair to pay almost every tax without eligibility for the privileges of many social welfare recipients. Actually, the government can compensate them in other ways, such as some preferential policies in respect to salary and to offer a certain tax-free mortgage amount to relieve their tax burdens. In trying to run the whole show in housing for them, the government will inevitably face an unprecedented deficit.
The author is vice-president of the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong.
(HK Edition 01/03/2013 page3)