Hong Kong needs common prosperity too, starting with affordable housing
- Financial Secretary Paul Chan’s call for Hong Kong to support Beijing’s drive for greater equality is long overdue in a city dominated by property elites
- The subsidised housing scheme recently launched by New World Development should push other developers to prioritise social impact over financial gain
Though firmly on message, Chan’s realisation was long overdue for a local government that has for so long paid little attention to public grievances about the domination of property developers.
It was in the late 2000s that Hong Kong experienced a palpable shift in public mood as discontent grew over the iron grip of conglomerates on every aspect of the city’s day-to-day life.
The intricate workings of the property elite were expertly captured in Alice Poon’s bestseller Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong, which detailed how a lack of competition and cartel-like behaviour had concentrated power and land in the same entities. The book, first published in 2005, sparked an awakening among the public to the ills of Hong Kong’s political economy.
Even the worldwide appeal of the Korean hit drama Squid Game is in no small part due to its relevance as a dystopian fable of social injustice. Incidentally, Land and the Ruling Class has just been translated into Korean, raising parallels for a country where the primacy of family-run industrial conglomerates, or chaebols, defines national life.
Times are changing, however, as the top family-run conglomerates in Hong Kong are now led by second- and third-generation heirs who are more energised about their role in generating greater equity.
Cheng’s progressive approach will make it easier for millennials to get on the property ladder with an affordable down payment and a graduated payment mortgage loan.
More importantly, it may inspire his contemporaries to embark on similar projects. Given the clout of Hong Kong’s developers, not to mention the vast New Territories land banks they hold, the public can rightly expect them to take the issue of affordable housing more seriously.
Alternatively, I recently proposed the building of a new town that could house 400,000 with land in Sha Tau Kok provided by the government. This would involve the central government coordinating the project, which would be funded, built and operated by a consortium of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese organisations or enterprises. Some of the apartments would be sold to young people at affordable prices.
In the age of stakeholder capitalism, corporate leaders must create long-term value not only for shareholders, but also for customers, employees, suppliers and the communities where they operate.
Francis Neoton Cheung is the convenor of Doctoral Exchange, a public policy research collective, and a former member of the Land and Building Advisory Committee