The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (CanCham), its Property Committee, Entrepreneur & Small Business Committee and Financial Services Committee, along with their respective members wish to provide comments to the Bills Committee in relation to our support of the Bills objectives which we believe to be as follows:
- To further dampen speculative demand and manage the appreciation of residential property prices;
- To Support Hong Kong permanent residents in buying one residential property, enabling owner occupation;
- To deter speculative investment in an over-heated residential property market until the government has increased land supply. The Special Stamp Duty (SSD) introduced in 2010 and Buyer’s Stamp Duty (BSD) introduces with effect in 2012 are other methods to curb speculation in the residential property market; and,
- To curb inflows of speculative capital into the non-residential property (hereafter commercial property) market as speculators shift their allocations in response to the success of the SSD and BSD. The Legco briefing paper expressly stated that one of the justifications for the new measures was to combat short-term resale activities in respect of commercial properties.
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