The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation recorded a 20.5% growth in profit-after-tax to $263.8 million in 2002.

The corporation also produced a return on equity of 8.9% and a return on assets of 0.9%. Its capital-to-assets ratio of 8.9% is well above the minimum requirement of 5%.

Since 1998, the size of the retained mortgage portfolio has grown at an annual compound rate of 25.6% to the current amount of $28.3 billion, which is close to 5% of the residential mortgage loan market.

In 2002, the corporation purchased a total of $14.4 billion of mortgage loans, 9.1% more than in 2001; and issued $15 billion in debt securities, including $5.5 billion in retail bonds.

The corporation maintained an excellent asset quality, with year-end figures of 0.31% and 0.17% for loans overdue for more than 90 days in the retained mortgage and mortgage insurance portfolios respectively, as compared with the industry average of 1.06%.

Chairman of the corporation's Board of Directors Antony Leung said: "Looking ahead, the corporation will continue to work in close co-operation with the banks, capital markets participants, insurers and regulators to bring further liquidity, stability and choice to Hong Kong mortgage and financial markets."