Tharman signals cooling measures not likely to be relaxed soon
Provided by Channel NewsAsia File photo of HDB flats. (Photo: TODAY)
SINGAPORE: Signalling that the Government is not intending to relax property cooling measures any time soon, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said on Tuesday (Oct 28) there is “some distance to go in achieving a meaningful correction”.
“If we do not get a meaningful reversal after each upswing, property prices will run ahead of the growth of household incomes over the long term, which we should avoid,” said Mr Tharman, who was speaking at Credit Counselling Singapore’s 10th anniversary lunch.
He noted that there has been some correction in both private property prices and Housing and Development Board resale prices over the last four to five quarters, following the sharp run-up in recent years.
“We can never get rid of cycles in the property market, with the upswings in some years being followed by corrections. Our cooling measures cannot eliminate the cycle, but they aim to temper it,” he said. “What this means is avoiding a bubble during the upswing and allowing for a correction in prices subsequently.”
The Government had introduced several rounds of cooling measures, including the Total Debt Servicing Ratio framework and tightened loan-to-value ratios for housing loans.
Last week, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan said it is still not the right time to wind down cooling measures and that there is still room for prices to moderate.
Channel News Asia Published on 28 Oct, 2014 By Siau Ming En
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