XN000022-1996-11-06 — Page 40

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Answer:

Mr President,

The Sandwich Class Housing (SCH) Scheme, introduced in 1993, has been effective in helping middle-income families to buy their own homes. It comprises a construction scheme and a loan scheme. Under the construction scheme, we have pledged to build 30,000 subsidised flats by 2003 for sale to eligible families. Flat production is on schedule. The first four projects were well received and over- subscribed. Under the loan scheme, financial assistance has been provided so far to over 4,000 families to buy flats in the open market. A further phase will be launched in the near future.

In the 1996 Policy Commitments, we have indicated the intention to promote home ownership and to complement efforts to release public rental housing flats for those in genuine need by considering to permit the sale of SCH flats to public rental housing tenants who meet the normal eligibility criteria. While these tenants may have a widen choice of subsidised housing schemes, they can exercise only one option and there is no question of double benefits. While the proposal may, in theory, diminish the prospects of sandwich class tenants living in private housing, the impact is not expected to be great,

End

Measures to combat crimes related to stolen ID cards

Following are a question by Dr Hon Law Cheung-kwok and a written reply by the Acting Secretary for Security, Mrs Carrie Yau, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

Will the Government inform this Council of:

(a)

the number of reported cases of loss of identity cards in each of the past three years, as well as the circumstances under which the majority of such cases occurred;

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