Hong Kong\'s new loans approved up 44.1%

Hong Kong\'s new mortgage loans drawn down in February rose 25.8 percent to 7.6 billion HK dollars, compared with January, the city\'s Monetary Authority announced on Monday. Its residential mortgage survey for February found new loans approved during the month rose 44.1 percent to 14.1 billion HK dollars. Approvals for primary market transactions grew 9.1 percent to 3.3 billion HK dollars, and approvals for secondary market transactions increased 68.9 percent to 9.6 billion. Approvals for refinancing rose 15.7 percent to 1.5 billion. The number of new applications rose 82.5 percent to 10,485. New mortgage loans priced with reference to best lending rates fell from 93.6 percent in January to 91.3 percent in February, with the largest portion priced within the range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent. New mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR rose to 3.4 percent. The outstanding value of mortgage loans remained at around 799.8 billion HK dollars. The Mortgage delinquency ration and the rescheduled loan ration remained unchanged at 0.01 percent and 0.02 percent.