The Ministry of Finance yesterday said it was temporarily extending a ban on sales of state-owned properties in Taipei amid concerns that the auctions may fuel already soaring property prices.
The ministry made the announcement following a closed-door meeting with other government agencies and experts. It didn’t say how long the ban would be in effect, but said that it would thoroughly review opinion it collected from the meeting before “setting a tone” for the contentious bidding.
“Because home prices [in the Taipei area] have continued to rise, resuming state-owned property auctions would push prices further up. Plus, interest rates are still not very high,” a director at the National Property Administration said by telephone.
FREEZE
A freeze on sales of small lots measuring less than 500 ping (1,650m²) has been in place since March on the back of growing concern that the sales could aggravate rampant property speculation in Taipei city and county and price gouging among construction companies.
The legislature’s Finance Committee then passed a resolution that public land auctions in the Greater Taipei area be halted for six months and that the ministry conduct a review on the reinstatement of the auctions in six months.
Chang Chin-oh (張金鶚), a land economics professor at National Chengchi University, told the Taipei Times yesterday that the government should never resume sales of state-owned land, as only property developers and construction companies benefit.
“The proceeds from the sales of state-owned properties should go to the public rather than large corporations,” Chang said by telephone.
Chang, the only representative from the academia at yesterday’s meeting, said that both the central bank and the Council for Economic Planning and Development had voiced concern during the meeting that current real estate conditions were still the same as in March, so the auctions should continue to be suspended.
On June 23, the central bank adopted targeted prudential measures to curb real estate speculation in major cities, including capping each home mortgage in the Taipei area at 70 percent of collateral and barring extensions on the repayment of loan principal.
Although the government has established a mechanism in May to buy back properties that have been left idle for a long time to prevent land hoarding by speculators, Chang said: “If the properties had never been sold, the [hoarding] problem would not exist.”
‘ILLEGAL’
Representatives of various organizations also criticized the meeting, which they said was “illegal” as it ignored the opinion of civic groups. They demanded that future meetings be open to the public and media.
“Sales of state-owned properties will only widen the gap between the rich and the poor, and the disadvantaged will never benefit from it,” said Peng Yang-kai (彭揚凱), spokesman of an alliance of non-homeowners (無殼蝸牛聯盟).
The alliance said that the Taipei City Government has a rich horde of small lots totaling more than 17 hectares with an estimated value of NT$19.3 billion.
“The government should not curry favor with large corporations by selling the properties to them,” Peng said, adding that the land should be used or developed to benefit the public.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last