The average waiting time for a public flat in Hong Kong has come down to 5.3 years, the Housing Authority said on Thursday.

Official data showed almost two and a half months were shaved off the average waiting period in the first quarter of this year, compared to the quarter before.

Some 2,000 applicants were allocated flats in the first three months of the year, the authority said.

But this still left more than 133,000 applicants in the queue.

The deputy chairman of Legco's housing panel, Leung Man-kwong, welcomed the slight fall in the waiting time.

He said the government should aim to complete public housing projects on time or even ahead of schedule to improve the situation further.

The average waiting time for elderly people is lower than that for other applicants and was unchanged in the first quarter, at 3.9 years.