REDA welcomes the 2015 Policy Address delivered by the Chief Executive yesterday as a well considered and measured response to the current challenges we face in Hong Kong.
On the housing issue in particular, we are pleased to note that the CE and his Administration are determined to address the supply-demand imbalance progressively. We agree completely with the CE that expediting land supply is the fundamental solution to resolve the land and housing problems in Hong Kong, and as such our town planning regime must reflect the overall interests of Hong Kong and heed the priorities of society’s needs. We fully support the CE’s view that we should not only consider the well-being of individual areas in planning and development, but also the overall housing supply and demand of Hong Kong as a whole.
We also agree that the Supplementary Labour Scheme should be further enhanced to allow imported skilled workers to work across various public sector works projects in order to address the problem of acute manpower shortage in the construction industry.
While we are pleased to note that the Government is prepared to leverage the private sector’s capacity to assist in increasing and accelerating the supply of subsidized sale flats, we believe the Government can also further leverage the expertise and resources of our members to facilitate urban regeneration and infrastructure development.