More Hong Kong companies say business impacted by mass protests

[Dosser]

SCMP has a series of insightful articles that talk about the protests in HK. Might be more credible from a HK based newspaper i reckon.

Hongkongers pay a price for their low taxes through the world’s most expensive homes and smallest living space. Here’s why

In a new series delving beyond the social unrest in Hong Kong to survey the city’s deep-rooted problems, the Post is focusing on the role of housing in causing great disaffection in society.
In this first instalment, we examine how the issue of high land prices is linked to government financing and the low-tax environment.

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/30...sive-homes

Unfortunately, the article makes a spurious linkage between high land prices and low taxes. The HK Government has largely failed to spend the money generated by high land prices - they have instead used it to build up enormous reserves of over $2 trillion, and spent much of the rest on white-elephant construction projects. In the 24 years before 1997 (the handover) the colonial government, with the same low taxes, built 9 new towns, where 2.4 million people now live. Average flat production in the last 10 years before the handover was about 70,000 per year, of which typically 15,000 to 20,000 were HOS (government subsidised for sale, equivalent to HDB) and 25,000 government rental. Since the handover, the HK government has studied 6 new towns, but not one has actually started construction. Annual flat production has dwindled to about 25,000 a year, total, with only about 500 HOS flats built per year between 2009 and 2018. Pre-handover there were the same low taxes, massive building of flats, and limited build-up of cash reserves. After handover, flat building, particularly government subsidised flats, has dropped enormously, property and land prices have skyrocketed, and the biggest single beneficiary, financially, has been the Hong Kong government. However, they have simply stuffed much of the money under the mattress. So the claim that the HK government needs high land prices to keep taxes low is nonsense.