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Hong Kong Legco election 2021
Hong KongPolitics

Beijing media misunderstood Hong Kong’s housing woes in blaming property tycoons for social unrest, Legco candidate Louis Loong says

  • Housing crisis, high prices the result of land shortage, government red tape, says Louis Loong
  • City’s most powerful tycoons back developers’ association chief for sector’s sole Legco seat

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Louis Loong (left) and Howard Chao are battling it out to be the Hong Kong property industry’s voice in Legco. Photo: SCMP
Joyce Ng

The Hong Kong Legislative Council’s sole seat for the real estate and construction sector will be contested for the first time in 17 years, with two candidates vying to reflect the interests of the city’s powerful property tycoons. Shamed by state media for hoarding land and blamed for the city’s sky-high home prices, the tycoons have seen their influence diminished under Beijing’s overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system.

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In the first of a four-part series on this month’s election, the Post interviewed both candidates, who go before 463 corporate voters in their sector, one of 28 functional constituencies that will send 30 lawmakers to the 90-seat Legco. Louis Loong Hon-biu, 70, chief administrator of an alliance of developers, faces Howard Chao, 38, scion of a colourful real estate family. The winner will replace pro-establishment businessman Abraham Razack, 76, who held the seat for 21 years but was told of Beijing’s preference that he did not seek re-election in the December 19 poll.
Louis Loong Hon-biu is adamant that China’s state media got it wrong when they blamed Hong Kong’s property tycoons for the city’s housing crisis and declared it the root of anti-government protests in 2019.

“If you say young people lose hope in Hong Kong because they cannot afford to buy a home, and this is caused by developers hoarding land … I feel that this is a very lazy evaluation,” he said.

“If you really want to solve the problem, don’t stay at this superficial level. You try to understand how it came about.”

Instead, Loong argued the city’s high home prices were the result of a shortage of land caused by government red tape in planning and administration processes. He said United States monetary policy also resulted in a liquidity boom and a low interest rate environment in Hong Kong, which fuelled demand and drove up prices.

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Inside Hong Kong’s Legco election
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