Page 11 - 20190415_LandAdvocacy_EN

The change in LTHS target has already started to feed through into future supply for private housing.

We expect that the average annual private residential completions in the next five years (2019 - 2023) would be
around 18,500 units, which is 11% lower than our previous rolling five-year forecast for 2018 - 2022 of 20,800 units.
We forecast that completions will see an increasing trend from 2019 to 2022, rising from 18,900 units for 2019 to
22,100 units for 2022. However, completions should see a sharp drop in 2023, as only 13,300 units are expected for
the year. (See Appendix I for details of private housing projects)

The annual average of 18,500 units for the next 5 years is still insufficient to compensate for the past shortfall. For
the past few years, the LTHS targets were slightly different every year, but hovered around 18,000 units per year.
Therefore, if a supply target of 18,000 units is assumed for the past decade (i.e. 2009 - 2018), a cumulative deficit of
51,000 units will be recorded compared to the average annual completion of 12,900 units.
The downward revision for completions for 2019 - 2022 was due to project delays observed throughout the
development process (see P.10-11).
The low completion forecast for 2023 factors in the sharp reduction in land supply that has been taking place since
2018 (see P.12-13). With the new LTHS target of 13,500 units for private housing, the Government has accordingly
reduced the supply of spade-ready land for private housing development in 2018.

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