Tackling Hong Kong’s housing crisis is my top priority but I have not forgotten about national security law, Carrie Lam says

In a wide-ranging interview chief executive backs reclamation as best way to solve land supply issue, and hints that national security legislation is not far away

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said tackling the city’s housing shortage is her top priority. Photo: Simon Song

Published: 3:44pm, 1 Jul 2018Updated: 9:01pm, 1 Jul 2018

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has said tackling the city’s housing shortage will be her top priority in the coming year.

The chief executive vowed her government would seek to boost land supply through reclamation, improve living conditions, and give Hongkongers greater hope of one day being able to own a home.

But she added that her government would not promise to bring house prices down.

“In a free economy it is extremely difficult to curb the price of a particular commodity or service,” she said. “No government, not to say this administration of a relatively free economy, would promise to make property prices drop by a certain [percentage].”

President Xi Jinping meets Carrie Lam in Beijing last year. Hong Kong’s chief executive said Beijing had allowed her a certain degree of freedom when it came to running the city. Photo: AP

In a wide-ranging interview with the media on Sunday, where Lam looked back on her first year in office, she also hinted that national security legislation would come sooner rather than later.