The government will launch a total of 45 sites, including 17 new sites, for sale through the land application list for the financial year 2006-07.

Although not a single site was applied during the past six months, the government says there is nothing wrong with the system.

The government yesterday announced the 2006-07 land application list, which includes 33 sites for residential use and 12 for commercial use.

For the residential sites, the total area is 29.6 hectares which will produce about 14,000 flats. Ten of them are located on Hong Kong Island, nine in Kowloon and the remaining 14 in the New Territories and the Outlying Islands.

With a total area of about 8.7 hectares, the 12 commercial sites are located in more diverse areas across the territory, and seven of them are readily available for hotel development.

Announcing the new list yesterday, Director of Lands Patrick Lau said the new list was prepared in response to the property sector.

"The new list comprises 18 sites that are smaller than 0.5 hectares to facilitate participation by small and medium developers.

"Of these 18 sites, 13 are residential. and the remaining five located in the urban areas," he told a press conference.

Yet, none of the 18 new sites announced are located on the Hong Kong Island.

However, Lau said there was nothing wrong with the current system although no property developer had applied in the past six months.

"This may due perhaps to the strategy of respective developers," he explained. "Some developers do not apply because they still have plenty of lands in reserve."

He also didn't want to lower the threshold of application from 80 per cent of the government's assessed open market value of the site to 70 per cent or lower.

"We do not want lower the criteria for the sake of more land sales because we have a right to safeguard government revenue," he said.

Eddie Hui, associate professor of building and real estate department of the Polytechnic University, said the new land list comprises sites of different kinds and locations.

"This will stimulate the desire of the property developers to apply for sites because some of them may have used up their land reserves," he said.

Yu Kam-hung, vice-president of Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors, reckoned that the newly-included small residential sites in the urban areas would be the focus of the market.

(HK Edition 03/18/2006 page3)