The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government will closely monitor changes in the real estate market in the coming months and fine-tune the land supply arrangements when necessary, HKSAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang said Wednesday.

"We will also discuss with the Urban Renewal Authority and MTR Corporation Limited with a view to quickening the pace of bringing readily available residential sites to the market," Tsang said in a policy address delivered at the Legislative Council.

Tsang said the Hong Kong real estate market had not been hit by the recent downturn as hard as in the financial storm in 1997.

"After a brief downward adjustment, property prices have returned to their mid-2008 levels," he said.

The property prices, except for luxury flats, were still below their peak in 1997, but the home-purchasing power of the public was greater than in 1997, and the number of negative equity cases remained very small, Tsang said.

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