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The Land Registry was in a strong financial position to invest in the planned conversion to title registration and to continue to improve existing services, the Land Registrar, Mr Kim Salkeld, said today (October 18).
"As well as carrying on with the legislative work and development of IT systems needed to allow us to start to introduce title registration we will continue to work on improving our services with the existing deeds registration system," Mr Salkeld said when commenting on the publication of the report of the Land Registry Trading Fund for 2005-06.
For the financial year ended March 31, 2006, the Land Registry Trading Fund achieved a net profit after tax of $139.5 million, a return of 31.5% on average net fixed assets. Required to provide a return of at least 10% on average net fixed assets, the Trading Fund will pay a dividend of $69.8 million to the Capital Investment Fund.
These figures were released in the 13th annual report of the Land Registry Trading Fund tabled by the Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, Mr Michael Suen, in the Legislative Council today.
"After the first year of operation of Integrated Registration Information System (IRIS), customer satisfaction in many areas is at record levels, with up to 98% satisfied or very satisfied customers for some services," Mr Salkeld said.
"We have seen a 22% increase in the number of business subscribers since the launch of IRIS and 85% of the more than 4.5 million searches made during the year used our electronic services," he said.
Mr Salkeld said that IRIS, launched on February 12, 2005, provided public access to land registry information over the internet as well as special services for business users, management of the 2.7 million registers and 17 million documents kept by the Land Registry and support for the Land Registry's business process.
The 13th annual report of the Land Registry Trading Fund can be viewed or downloaded through the Land Registry website at www.landreg.gov.hk.
Ends/Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Issued at HKT 12:43
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