HA endorses Corporate Plan and Budget for 2022-23

The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Housing Authority:

     At the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) meeting today (January 17), the HA endorsed the Corporate Plan for 2022-23, the 2021-22 Revised Budget and the 2022-23 Proposed Budget, and also noted the 2023-24 to 2025-26 Financial Forecasts.
 
     In 2022-23, the HA will continue to focus its efforts on providing quality homes, promoting sustainable living, optimising and rationalising the use of public resources and enhancing the attractiveness of its commercial properties. Based on these four themes, a total of 50 key activities and 19 key performance indicators have been drawn up for the 2022-23 Corporate Plan.
 
     "The Corporate Plan is the platform through which the HA directs its work and focuses its efforts to address the challenges of public housing. In 2022-23, we will continue to seek the Government's provision of suitable sites for developing both public rental housing (PRH) units and subsidised sale flats with a view to increasing the supply of public housing units. As announced by the Chief Executive on December 30, 2021, and endorsed by the Subsidised Housing Committee of the HA on January 6, 2022, we will put up around 13 600 Home Ownership Scheme and Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Scheme flats for sale in 2022," a spokesman for the HA said.
 
     "On the development and construction of public housing, we will adopt more widely modular integrated construction and other innovative construction technology to speed up public housing construction. We will also leverage private sector expertise by adopting a design-and-build procurement model and improving the standard design and material standards to further improve the efficiency of public housing construction. Furthermore, we will study the feasibility of redeveloping aged PRH estates including Sai Wan Estate and Ma Tau Wai Estate. On estate management, we will continue to enhance safety, environmental hygiene, greening and landscaping, as well as community bonding, in PRH estates, and raise the awareness among PRH tenants on the Government's upcoming implementation of municipal solid waste charging," the spokesman added.
 
     The financial resources on hand that the HA can utilise to maintain its operation and payments for constructing the increasing number of public housing units are its cash and investment balance. For the budget and forecast period from 2021-22 to 2025-26, the cash and investment balance of the HA is projected to change from $57.9 billion at the beginning of April 2021 to around $57.7 billion by the end of March 2026. It is also projected that the HA will have the necessary financial resources to meet its recurrent expenditure and take forward its current public housing construction programme and maintenance works during the budget and forecast period.
 
     "This round of five-year Budgets and Forecasts up to 2025/26 only reflects the financial commitments of the planned production of around 100 000 flats. It has yet to take into account all the financial implications that may arise from the updated public housing supply projection of around 330 000 units for the 10-year period from 2022-23 to 2031-32 as announced in the 2021 Policy Address and reflected subsequently in the Long Term Housing Strategy Annual Progress Report 2021. We envisage that the HA's construction expenditure for the second five-year period will be more than double that estimated in the current Forecasts. According to the existing mechanism, the HA will conduct the annual rolling five-year budgeting exercise to assess its financial position and future funding requirements," the spokesman said.
 
     The HA's 2022-23 Corporate Plan and the Budgets will be submitted to the Chief Executive for approval. The Financial Forecasts will also be made available to the Chief Executive for her information.