The pledge by the Government and Housing Authority to keep the average waiting time for public rental housing at three years will not falter.

This was the message from Secretary for Housing, Planning & Lands Michael Suen responding to a question from Abraham Shek in the Legislative Council today.

Mr Suen said due to an abundant supply of new and refurbished public-rental housing units, including Home Ownership Scheme units transferred for rental use, the Government reduced the number of Waiting List applicants to about 92,000 at the end of 2002, down from 150,000 at the end of 1997.

This has reduced waiting time to under three years, from more than six years in 1997.

To sustain the three-year wait pledge, the Housing Department will closely monitor the demand for public rental housing to determine the amount of new production required to meet the pledge.

"On the basis of these factors as well as an estimated annual supply of over 10,000 refurbished flats from the existing public-rental housing stock, we are confident we can maintain the average waiting time at around three years with an annual production of over 20,000 public rental housing flats in the next few years," Mr Suen said.

"We will keep the forecast demand under regular review. The actual quantum of public rental housing production will be determined and adjusted in the light of the forecast demand."