Hong Kong's New Mortgages Rise 12.7 pct in May

Hong Kong's new mortgage loans in May rose to 28.9 billion HK dollars (3.7 billion U.S. dollars), up 12.7 percent month-on-month from April, while new loans approved increased by 0.1 percent to 37.8 billion HK dollars, the city's Monetary Authority said Monday.

In May, approvals for primary market transactions were little changed at 4.7 billion HK dollars, while approvals for secondary market transactions fell by 1 billion HK dollars and approvals for refinancing loans increased by 1.1 billion HK dollars. The number of new applications dropped 11.1 percent to 20,283.

About 16 percent of the new mortgage loans approved were priced with reference to best lending rates in May, the majority of which were in the price range of 2 percent to less than 2.25 percent. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to the interbank offered rates increased to 82.7 percent from 80.9 percent in April.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans rose 1.5 percent to 675. 6 billion HK dollars. Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and rescheduled loan ratio remained at 0.03 percent and 0.06 percent in May, said the Monetary Authority. (1 U.S. dollar equals to 7. 784 HK dollars)