Singapore may need to implement more measures to rein in its property market should low interest rates and an economic recovery renew speculative purchases, the central bank said.
Demand for private homes has experienced “strong growth” and unchecked price gains may expose the property market to risks in the global economy, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in its “Financial Stability Review” on Monday. There should be “close monitoring” of home prices and transactions, it said.
Asian policy makers from South Korea to Singapore are confronted with rising real-estate values, which threaten to mimic the US mortgage bubble that roiled the global economy.
Singapore has barred interest-only loans for some housing projects and stopped allowing developers to absorb interest payments for apartments that are still being built.
“Despite the lingering uncertainties in the domestic and global economy, domestic property market activity has taken on its own dynamic,” the central bank said. “The risk of a renewed escalation of speculative momentum cannot be discounted. The nature and timing of further measures, if deemed necessary, would have to be balanced against the still uncertain path of economic recovery.”
The government is releasing more land for sale in the first half of next year as part of measures to prevent excessive price swings in the property market. Home prices rose 15.8 percent in the third quarter, the most in 28 years, after dropping 25 percent in the previous four quarters.
Low borrowing costs and the city state’s recovery from its worst recession in more than four decades aided the rebound in home prices, the central bank said.
Singapore’s economy is forecast by the government to contract as much as 2.5 percent this year. GDP may expand 3 percent next year, the Straits Times reported on Monday, citing Singaporean Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew (李光耀).
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
RSS