HONG KONG -- The Hong Kong government sold a luxury site near the downtown on Thursday, setting a record of the second highest price in the city's land auction history, though quite below former market estimates.

The 10,500-square-meter site, locating on Borrett Road, attracted five developers to bid, among whom Cheung Kong, a well- known local property developer owned by billionaire Li Ka-shing, won the lot with an offer of HK$11.65 billion ($1.5 billion), about 22.63 percent up from its start price of HK$9.5 billion, close to the lower in the former market estimates range of HK$11 billion to 15 billion.

It is the second highest land auction price in the city after the HK$11.82 billion record set in 1997.

Related readings:  Three lots auctioned in HK with "satisfactory" prices  Land auction heats up market  'Land kings' expected to sit out auction of building plots  'Land auctions delayed over Congress' in Beijing

Victor Li, deputy chairman of Cheung Kong, said after the auction that the price was under their budget. "The land is in the traditional luxury property region, and we will probably lease some of the apartments after the buildings have been completed."

Another site auctioned on Thursday afternoon was also purchased by Cheung Kong. The 6075-square-meter site, sitting in Yuen Long, a remote suburb area in northwest New Territories, was sold for HK$300 million, close to the upper end of market forecast.

Graham Ross, the auctioneer, said he was quite content about the results of the auction, which showed developers' strong interests for the property as well as the market needs.

After keeping climbing up in past two years, Hong Kong's housing market still soared in 2011, with its February's overall housing price reaching the peak level in 1997.

To clamp down on property prices, the city government has vowed to increase land supply as well as the speculative activities in the market.

"I shall not hesitate to introduce further measures to guarantee sound and healthy development of property market," said John Tsang, financial secretary of the city government, on Thursday.