HKFEI 2025 Policy Address Recommendations

Hong Kong faces a number of economic and social problems, including a high cost of living, a broken housing ladder, a widening fiscal deficit, low fertility, and an ageing population. We believe that an undersupply-driven housing policy is the key factor behind these problems. Therefore, to prevent Hong Kong’s economy from sliding into a prolonged recession, reforming housing policy must be the top priority.

As the Chief Executive consults the public on the new Policy Address, the Hong Kong Future Economy Institute is putting forward six housing policy recommendations, in the hope of rebuilding Hong Kong’s homeownership ladder, revitalising the subsidised housing market, and working together to seek development and build a shared future for the city.

The six housing policy recommendations are:

1. Expand the quota for the “White Form HOS Secondary Market Scheme” to 12,000, with consideration next year of a more significant increase in the cap, or even the full removal of the quota.
2. Introduce a “Secondary Market Flat-for-Flat Scheme” that allows all subsidised-sale flat owners to swap flats in the secondary market in line with their personal needs, promoting housing mobility.
3. Extend the “Unpaid-Priced Subsidised-Sale Flats Rental Scheme” to all public rental housing applicants, in order to release idle flats, ease supply pressures in the private rental market, and curb rent increases.
4. Revise the public-rental-to-HOS construction ratio to 1:1, rebuild an upwardly mobile homeownership ladder, and respond to demographic and social development needs.
5. Relaunch an improved version of the Public Rental Housing Tenant Homeownership Scheme, giving PRH tenants the opportunity to move from renting to owning, releasing potential labour supply, and boosting economic vitality.
6. Formulate a long-term housing policy centred on “supporting young people in home purchase”, link it with population policy, and re-plan Hong Kong’s future housing blueprint, laying a sustainable development foundation for the next generation.

• 2025 Policy Address Recommendations