Chief Executive John Lee says the government is studying the possibility of expanding the eligibility criteria for light public housing flats so that more people who are living in inadequate housing can benefit from the scheme.

The government earlier announced that it’s picked eight sites across Hong Kong to build around 30,000 modular housing units over the next five years, for people who have been on the public housing waiting list for three years or more.

But in an interview with the Ta Kung Pao newspaper that was published on Wednesday, the CE said the government is considering whether to also make these temporary units available to those who live in ‘inadequate housing’.

"The priority is to provide a large number of homes. Once there are enough homes, people living in inadequate housing, such as sub-divided units, can move out," he said, without specifying the criteria for poor housing.

“We all agree that at the end of the day, some of these inadequate housing should not exist in Hong Kong.”

Meanwhile, the CE also said in the interview that both the local economy and society are moving in the right direction since emerging from the Covid pandemic.

But he stressed Hong Kong must continue to guard against possible threats to national security.