A Study Of Singapore And Hong Kong Housing Policies

Housing is a fundamental human right.A developed government has its obligation to make sure its citizens have a right to live in habitable,affordable and safe place.The cost of housing should be attainable and other basic needs should not be compromised.Housing problem in Hong Kong has been a controversial issue nowadays.Price of houses in Hong Kong is unreasonably increasing.Citizens in Hong Kong face difficulties in getting a house no matter it is a public house or private house,which causing an increment of homeless rate and citizens living in inhabited conditions.It can prove that the housing market in Hong Kong is very imbalance and unhealthy.Hong Kong government has been implementing different policies to release the pressure of housing,such as providing more public houses and housing allowance.However,the housing problem is still not solved yet.The price of private permanent residential flats has been increasing sharply from 2003 to 2013.This study aims to solve or give recommendation to Hong Kong's currently housing problem,identify all possible solutions,by studying and researching Singapore's housing policy.Both Singapore and Hong Kong were the colonies of Britain,sharing similar property laws and planning approaches learned from Britain at the early stage.Hong Kong and Singapore both shares a certain number of similarities in economy,society and demography.They are both facing a high level growth of population,and are compact in size.However,the effectiveness of government housing policies in Hong Kong and Singapore are very different.Due to the success of the housing policy,the home ownership rate in Singapore is much higher than the rate in Hong Kong.This thesis will mainly compare and examine the public housing market in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively,and test whether Singapore's housing policy can be possibly adopt into Hong Kong.Two countries will be evaluated and analyzed in order to find out whether Hong Kong government can be able to intervene the housing market like Singapore government.Literature reviews will be used to analyse the factors that may impede the way to use Singapore housing approaches in Hong Kong.The background information of both Hong Kong and Singapore will be evaluated,including the geographical condition,population,economic status housing policies for both private owned and public properties.The main aspects in terms of social,economy and policy will also be examined and compare in this paper in the discussion section.They include the differences between Singapore's social economy policy and Hong Kong's free market economy policy and Singapore's Central Provident Fund versus Hong Kong's Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes.After examining them,this thesis will analyze the opportunity,possibility,challenge and difficulty when adopting Singapore's policy in Hong Kong.In the end,recommendations and suggestions will be provided to understand if any of these factors can be implemented in Hong Kong to solve its housing issues.