Letter: Why China’s housing sector often misleads

The FT Big Read “The end of ‘build, build, build’” (September 23) quoted Logan Wright of the Rhodium Group in Hong Kong who said that in China “there is enough empty property to house more than 90m people”.

This is just 6.4 per cent of the total Chinese population of 1.4bn.

Hong Kong has been plagued by housing shortages, but the vacancy rate was 4.3 per cent last year. So 6.4 per cent as a national average does not indicate oversupply at all.

While there is oversupply in some cities, extrapolation across China, given its size and diversity, more often than not misleads.

CY Leung
Former Chief Executive, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong

Letter: Why China’s housing sector often misleads
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