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their land in a planned lay-out in exchange for other land in the same lay-out.
By reasons of the acute shortage of land in Hong Kong and Government's
policy of selling any land available to private speculators at an inflated value,
there are at present more than 14 million sq. ft. of agricultural land and
250,000 sq.ft. of building land under the land exchange scheme for which the
Government has not yet made available any land for exchange. The effect is that
owners whose land has been resumed by the Crown have received "paper-rights",
These are called "Letter B Entitlements", the effect of which are as follows:·
(i) In extinguishing the landowner's right to compensation on the
resumption of his land by the Crown he is offered a grant of land
within a specified layout district (subject to suitable land being
available in the particular area).
(ii) A premium will be payable in respect of the building land to be
granted less the market value of the agricultural land surrendered.
The system of "Letter B" Exchange is calculated to discriminate
against the small landowner:
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(i) When building land is made available for exchange, it is usually
in very large lots. An owner who has not surrendered sufficient
agricultural land (on the ratio of 5 square feet of agricultural
land for 2 square feet of building land) will not be entitled to
apply for exchange.
(ii) In consequence of the above, some small holders of Letter B
Exchange Entitlements have not had their rights satisfied for up
to 15 years.
(iii) The small holder is usually forced to sell his right to the large
developers from the urban areas who are able to consolidate their
Letters B and in this way take advantage of the new building land
made available by the Government from time to time.
Inordinate delay on the part of the Government in granting land for
exchange causes great hardship on those whose land has been surrendered long ago.
Under the present system, no interest is payable to the landowner by the
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