Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Government Will Continue To Monitor Residential Property Market

Source : Channel NewsAsia, 02 January 2008

The government will continue to monitor the residential property market in a bid to ensure that prices remain stable, according to National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan (Picture).

He was responding to questions from reporters on Wednesday for his outlook for the property sector in 2008.

He noted that the government had taken measures last year to cool the sector, but also said that there are external factors at play in 2008.

Mr Mah said: "It's not my job, neither is it my ability to predict prices. All I can say is that we monitor the price situation very carefully and over the past months, the government has taken several steps to try to cool down the strong speculative fervour that was taking place earlier in the year. Those are the internal factors.

"As you know, there are also many external factors that could affect property prices. Those are external factors which are beyond our control, so we don't really know how the sub-prime crisis is going to pan out. We don't know what's going to happen to the American economy this year.

"What we do know is for Singapore and we are optimistic that we will continue to do well. It's up to us to keep a close eye on the market to ensure prices remain stable and move in tandem with the economy." - CNA/so

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