Leong claims gov’t monitors property market closely

Lionel Leong

The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong, said yesterday that the government is paying particular attention to the real estate sector. Leong said that a different government department will conduct research on policies relating to Macau’s property price so as to ensure that the price will meet citizens’ purchasing ability. “Currently, we don’t have a new policy or measurements ready to be launched,” said Leong, explaining that the government is not currently considering launching new policies in order to control the housing market.

Nonetheless, the secretary claimed that the government is always studying the housing market, and whenever the market shows some fluctuation, the government will come up with new policies.

“As the Chief Executive said, we will make our move when it is needed,” remarked Leong. The secretary also noted that last month, authorities tightened mortgage lending conditions for both non-first-time resident buyers and non-resident buyers who purchase a residential property or enter into a pre-purchase of an unfinished flat.

Under the new measure, the available mortgage rate has been tightened to 10 to 20 percent of the property’s purchase price.

Some parties within the real estate market considered the policy to be unnecessarily restrictive of the middle class’ purchasing power, rather than the intended speculators.   

“Our various departments will always keep eyes on the market to see whether those new measurements are performing as we expected,” declared Leong, adding that “a close monitoring of the market is definitely essential.”

“We will consider all kinds of potential policies if we can make sure that the property
market evolves towards a healthy situation.”

When asked whether the aforementioned government policy is working effectively, Leong said that the government is currently observing the situation. “We are still gathering different information from the market, I don’t think it’s scientific of me to jump to conclusions yet in such a short time,” he said.