Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority to relax rules on tenders, borrow cash after HK$3.5 billion deficit last year
- Changes will also include alterations to tendering schedule to better align it with cash flow timing
- Authority managing director Wai Chi-sing says streamlined tendering will boost developers’ interest in bidding, as well as speed up process
Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority (URA) will relax tendering rules for projects to lure more developers to make bids and the organisation plans to borrow from outside sources after it ran up a rare deficit of HK$3.5 billion (US$447 million) in the previous financial year.
The changes, outlined by URA managing director Wai Chi-sing on Sunday, also include alterations to the tendering schedule to better align it with cash flow timing.
Wai said in a post on the authority’s website that projects to be completed in the next five years, including ones already started, would cost about HK$80 billion.
“Given the authority’s present cash flow of HK$18 billion, there is a certain degree of pressure on the finances,” Wai wrote.
But he emphasised the URA had worked out strategies to maintain the “sustainability of urban rejuvenation”.
He said there was an accumulated surplus of about HK$37 billion in the authority’s account because of developments launched during the earlier property boom.
