Central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) yesterday said there is still room for credit tightening to cool metropolitan Taipei’s property market, adding that mortgage restrictions for those buying a second property are potential options.
Yang’s statements came at a question-and-answer session at the legislature in Taipei focused on potential economic repercussions from the US Federal Reserve’s expected interest rate increases and inflation pressure caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“There is still room for the central bank to improve its policy measures to cool down the property fever,” Yang told lawmakers on the Finance Committee, after some of them had called existing credit controls ineffective.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Lawmakers said that Taiwan should learn a lesson from South Korea, where real estate becoming increasingly unaffordable led to the opposition candidate winning Wednesday’s presidential election.
Yang said that second-home mortgage restrictions imposed in 2010 proved successful to curb housing price increases in metropolitan Taipei.
Reimposing the measure would be discussed at the central bank’s quarterly policy meeting on Thursday next week, he added.
Housing prices surged due in part to Taiwan’s strong economy, Yang said, denying that fund inflows and property speculation are the main factors.
The central bank is seeking to induce a soft landing for housing prices, Yang said.
Measures to rein in the housing market should not be used to fight inflation, as they would prove costly after interest rates have been raised, he said.
Yang said he doubted that Russia would soon be bankrupt due to economic sanctions, including oil embargos and its credit ratings being downgraded.
Russia has foreign exchange reserves of more than US$600 billion and about US$400 billion in privately owned foreign currency-denominated assets, Yang said.
Russia has cut its US dollar reserves from more than 40 percent of overall foreign currency reserves in 2014 to about 10 percent, Yang said.
Moscow has raised its Chinese yuan, cryptocurrency and gold reserves, which could give it a buffer, as China is not participating in international sanctions, he added.
Yang said Taiwanese companies have limited exposure in Russia, as trade between the countries is mainly handled by foreign banks, such as HSBC Holdings PLC and Citibank Inc.
Nickel prices have surged to more than US$100,000 per tonne, but as Taiwan’s current nickel reserves would last more than one year, minting costs would remain stable, Yang said, adding that recycled coins could also be used for minting new ones.
Global monetary policymakers could moderate the pace of rate increases to ease the economic effects of Russia invasion of Ukraine, Yang said.
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