17/9/19:
More on Beijing’s growing focus on confronting Hong Kong’s tycoons “…after months of anti-government protests, China sees the tycoons, primarily property developers, as people responsible for the city’s grave socioeconomic injustices, which are sending young people into the streets. Last Friday, three state media outlets published commentaries singling out unaffordable housing as a “root cause” underlying the current protests…The state media involved were the Xinhua news agency, the People’s Daily and Global Times. Xinhua reiterated China’s position that “the top priority for Hong Kong is to stop the violence.” But it added: “We must pay close attention to the deep-seated contradictions and problems in Hong Kong in a timely manner, and take effective measures to solve them, completely eliminating the root causes of social unrest.” The People’s Daily commentary took a tough line, calling on real estate developers to show goodwill and “act in the public interest” instead of trying to squeeze “the last penny” from their land hoardings. The state media were responding favorably to a proposal last Wednesday by the pro-Beijing political party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) in which the party called on the government use the Land Resumption Ordinance to expropriate land owned by developers to build affordable housing for young people. Developers are believed to own a huge land bank of 1,000 hectares of abandoned farmland in the New Territories.”
More here. “Hong Kong’s developers are coming under mounting pressure to slash their prices and offload new projects as quickly as possible, according to analysts.The pressure is coming from two sources: a looming tax on unsold flats, and a series of Chinese state-media commentaries last week urging the Hong Kong government to boost housing by seizing land being hoarded by developers with “vested interests”.”
See also entry for 13/9/19 – Is Beijing proposing government nationalisation of HK land?
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