Title

Policy blunder of the century threatens Hong Kong's economic future

Document Type

Book chapter

Source Publication

The first Tung Chee-hwa administration : the first five years of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Publication Date

2002

First Page

175

Last Page

199

Publisher

The Chinese University Press

Abstract

8 December 1997 was a fateful day for Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Housing Authority announced a scheme, which it called the Tenant Purchase Scheme, whereby sitting tenants in selected blocks in its heavily subsidized housing estates were given the opportunity to buy at deep discounts the units in which they were currently living. Because the scheme allowed the richer tenants to buy their own units at the same attractive discounts (the discounts were subsequently reduced in 1998) this was obviously against the spirit of the existing policy of reducing and ultimately eliminating the subsidy given to the richer tenants (Ho 1997). By reducing the incentive of the richer tenants to move out of public housing it would lengthen the time for people in the queue to be assigned public rental flats.

Funding Information

Support from the RCC Grant Committee (LU3008/00H) is gratefully acknowledged.

Publisher Statement

Copyright © The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002

Additional Information

ISBN of the source publication: 962996015x

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Ho, L. S. (2002). Policy blunder of the century threatens Hong Kong's economic future. In S. K. Lau (Ed.), The first Tung Chee-hwa administration: The first five years of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (pp. 175-200). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.

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