Govt land sales surge to nearly $6b
PROCEEDS from government land sales have reached their highest level since 1997, hitting almost $6 billion in the last financial year, compared with $1.96 billion previously.
More than half of the deals came from the private sector, which bought $3.67 billion worth of land in the 12 months ended March 31, said the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) yesterday. This is more than 12 times the proceeds from the private sector in the preceding year, which totalled only $289.8 million.
The figure also surpasses the $3.08 billion worth of private-sector deals in the last property boom in 2000, but still remains at half the level of the 1997 peak, which saw $6.87 billion of such sales.
The huge spike in last year’s proceeds was mainly due to major projects such as the $1 billion Business and Financial Centre at Marina Bay and the $1.38 billion Orchard Turn development, SLA said.
Knight Frank director of research and consultancy Nicholas Mak said the figure ‘reflects the very bullish prices that developers are willing to pay for land, which shows their positive outlook on the sector’.
SLA also sold a large amount of land to statutory boards such as JTC Corporation and HDB, with public-sector proceeds coming up to $2.18 billion.
This is 30 per cent higher than the previous year’s proceeds of $1.67 billion but is a far cry from the $7 billion worth of deals done in 1997, SLA said.
Source : Straits Times -28 Sep 2006
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