The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
| Residential prices remain flattish Posted: VARIOUS issues related to affordability and speculation continue to hog the overall residential market for the first half of this year. Coupled with the recently concluded 13th general election, the first half was "relatively sluggish", property research reports concluded. In fact, prices have been "flattish over the past 12 months", one report concluded, due in part to the various cooling measures instituted by the Government. The primary high-end condominium market appears to be performing better than the secondary market due to various incentives and attractive payment schemes and product offerings which come in smaller sizes in line with today's market trend. In the prime areas of KL city centre (pic) and Mont'Kiara, prices and rentals remain generally flat due to the high supply and a weak leasing market, says Knight Frank. In its research report for the first half, PPC International Sdn Bhd says it "believes that the residential market is experiencing a general slowdown." This view, the report says, is supported by falling transactions. The total volume of transactions in the first quarter of this year dropped to 17,796 units compared to 23,790 units in the same period last year. The existing residential property stock for the first half of this year is 4.67 million units. However, the new planned supply dropped to 31,677 units in the first quarter of this year from 32,472 for the same period last year. "The drop in the total planned supply for Malaysia could be interpreted as a sign of developers exercising caution in launching new residential projects," the report says. The slower momentum, however, is not evidenced in Johor, especially in Iskandar Malaysia. "The average house price dropped from RM251,731 in the last quarter of 2012 to RM245,036 in the first quarter of 2013. Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Penang also experienced a decline in average house prices. "However, there is no specific record on falling prices of any category of real estate. We believe, the drop in average house prices is largely brought about by higher volume of low to medium cost residential units sold. "Against this environment, PPC believes that the residential market is experiencing a general slowdown," the report says. The demand for landed housing continues to be high, notwithstanding the fact the returns do not justify as investment properties, the report says. Going forward, the interest is expected to hover around developments close to the ongoing MRT/LRT extensions. Knight Frank says prices of condominiums in the secondary market in the suburban areas are expected to continue to perform well, supported by sustained local demand. "Prices of well-located high-rise properties that are managed well continue to appreciate, closing the gap between primary and secondary prices," the Knight Frank report says, adding that yields continue to be compressed as price increments/high selling prices do not correspond with the lagging rental market. In the primary market, there were a few high-rise residential property launches towards the end of the first half. Enquiries with developers by property consultants revealed good takeup rates of these developments. Among the most prominent is Venus Assets' Four Seasons Places located within KL city centre, the first of its brands in South-East Asia. "The popularity of global branded residences continues to be on the rise, setting a new definition to luxury living complete with hotel supported services," Knight Frank says. The average selling price for Four Seasons Place is in the region of RM2,500 per sq ft with buyers comprising mainly Malaysians and foreigners from Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. More launches have been scheduled for the second half with a certain degree of "caution", taking the queue from overall global situation. The PPC report says "house prices recorded by the National Property Information Centre indicate that the market is creeping into a consolidation phase." "PPC does not foresee a definite impact on the demand from young professionals, given the shorter home loan repayment period and the pricing of residential market which is beyond their financial income bracket." While foreigners will be attracted to predominantly Kuala Lumpur city centre, Penang and Iskandar Malaysia, local purchasers will be geared more towards purchasing township developments, especially landed homes, the PPC report says. Moving forward, 2013 will also see developers acquiring land for medium-sized developments. While the market generally is in a cautious mode, the outlook for residential market in urban locations is bullish, it says. |
| Challenge and opportunity for Asean Posted: AT the end of July, it was reported by China's CCTV that President Xi Jinping had said at a meeting of the country's Politburo that Beijing wished to put aside the territorial sea disputes with a number of neighbours, and to seek joint maritime development in disputed waters. Of course, he also said China would not compromise or budge on its sovereign claims, which is not surprising. Even in China, politics is the art of the possible. A lot has taken place, especially in the last couple of years; incidents at sea, assertion of rights and occupation of disputed islands, bitter verbal exchanges between some of the disputants. Nationalist emotion had been aroused. It is not easy to roll all that back without it being described as capitulation. So anyone proposing a time out will have to watch his back. However, there does appear to be a diplomatic effort by China to move on peaceably. At the Asean plus summits in Brunei at the beginning of July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had stated the South China Sea disputes were not the entirety of Asean-China relations. Not a new point by Beijing to be sure, but it has been followed up by Wang Yi in Bangkok at the 10th anniversary of Asean-China Strategic Partnership on Aug 2 with a proposal on how the South China Sea disputes could be addressed. He proposed three simultaneous ways. First, an agreement is to be forged through consultation and negotiation between direct parties concerned. Second, the countries involved to continue to implement the Declaration on Conduct (DOC) of 2002 while "gradually" pushing forward consultations on the Code of Conduct (COC) – which is not a solution but to safeguard peace and stability in the region. And finally, to search for ways of common exploitation not just, he said, for economic interest but to signal to other parts of the world that countries in the region are willing to solve their disputes cooperatively. Although not quite a breakthrough, it is a positive development. China has blown hot and cold before. As with individuals in disputes, there will be memories of the other party's actions and utterances which will be dragged out. With China, its rather bellicose actions of the past two years have been scary for the Philippines and Vietnam and worrying to other regional states. Whether China had succumbed to uncontrolled domestic nationalist sentiment, had responded unsteadily to the US pivot to the region, or had acted recklessly in particular situations, are matters that should be put aside now, and if, China has taken the initiative to find a way out of a situation that was getting worse and worse. We must not forget that China too has its grievances, such as the occupation of disputed islets and atolls that took place in the 1960s and 1970s, or of alleged aggressive action by Philippine or Vietnamese vessels. Of course the Chinese version is always disputed but, China feels, not those of its adversaries. In a row, this could go on and on. The important thing is not to wait and see, the kind of diplomatic drift that often characterises Asean actions in the political-security sphere, but to test the China's apparent good intentions. The Asean-China "consultations" that will take place in Beijing at the end of August on the COC are obviously going to be an occasion to gauge it, but necessary, as it is the COC is not sufficient to ensure a more durable and stable situation in the South China Sea. Diplomatic drift It is not going to be a straight line. Already, almost in the same breath, the word from Beijing is for Asean not to expect too much from the COC consultations. And every day, if South China Sea developments are followed closely, there are unfriendly, or at least not helpful activities, such as the boosting of naval capabilities, greater surveillance, engagement of outside powers and populist statements against the other recalcitrant party. If there is diplomatic drift and the COC, first mentioned over 10 years ago, still remains in the works, a miscalculation or an incident from which there can be no retreat, can cause a conflagration which could get out of hand. Thus an opening such as China's recent initiative should be seized by Asean. The trouble is Asean has made many utterances but has not got a clear policy on the South China Sea disputes beyond the COC which has become another of the Asean mantras, something with merit uttered again and again until it dulls the mind on how to move further forward. With no policy, there cannot be a strategy on how to achieve a set of objectives. Now that China has come up with the outlines of a policy for the South China Sea, Asean has to meet and to strategise, not wait for another rigid set-piece summit. It is not clear how far Asean foreign ministers discussed China's most recent overture at their meeting in Hua Hin last Wednesday as their statement after it still concentrated on the COC. Another problem is Asean does not move fast enough. There is no machinery that not only has worked out a certain strategy but can also follow through expeditiously. Asean Blueprint The Asean Blueprint on the Political-Security community makes mention of the South China Sea disputes but only in general terms and does not provide for a mechanism to pursue the matter in real time, not just in response to initiatives such as China's just now, but also to do preparatory work on how to take the matter forward in the region's best interest. And, while Thailand is the coordinator of Asean-China relations, does its mandate include attending to the South China Sea situation, or is it just limited to organising meetings and events which all Asean countries do well enough? The chair of Asean of course has a responsibility to steer the Asean ship in between the big meetings, but no clear accountability if it does not do so. Some are more active than others, as Indonesia was in 2011, and Cambodia in a different way last year. Brunei takes a gentler approach this year, which is quietly effective but not proactive enough. God knows what Myanmar is going to be like next year. The Asean secretariat is purely administrative in nature, primarily an arranger of meetings, the number of which puts Asean neck and neck with the EU. Its budget is ridiculously small. And while there is better recognition of the Secretary-General in the Asean Charter, it does not give enough support for him to be able to act independently, even if just intellectually. Of course it could be said it is up to the individual claimant states how they responded to Wang Yi's overture. There are some problems here. The Asean claimants also have overlapping claims against one another. Additionally, if there was no common Asean position, China could pick out one or other states as being recalcitrant, or play off one Asean state against another. This is realpolitik and there is no point tearing our hair out if it happens – especially if Asean is not prepared, has no common position, while screaming it has a central role. Already, it is interesting to note the Chinese foreign minister has said the COC was disrupted by "some individual party's behaviour...China does not want to see that happen again." Clearly aimed at the Philippines, it implies the Philippines was in the wrong in the Scarborough Shoal stand-off last year; but it could also be construed as directed at Manila's greater defence engagement of the US and its referral of the issues surrounding the South China Sea disputes, particularly China's dine-dash line, to the International Law of the Sea Tribunal, which China bitterly opposes. It is interesting, too, to note Wang Yi stressed solving disputes through negotiations on the basis of respecting historical facts and international law, the two being "equally" important, neither neglected. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), it is clearly stated historical claims cannot form the basis of sovereign right. While Asean states and China are signatories of the Unclos, what does Asean make of this Chinese position? It is not an impossible position as there could be a regional compact on joint development which does not take a view on strict law, meaning the issue of sovereignty will never be solved, as the benefits of joint development are implanted in the regional genes. An agreement committing the cooperating states to clear obligations and a regional dispute settlement mechanism could under-pin such an arrangement. The thing is there is no common Asean position on all these intricate matters and there will be a disjointed response to China's proposal on the way forward on the South China Sea disputes. Asean must have a mechanism, perhaps a high-level Standing Committee not subsumed by bureaucratic predisposition, which is alive to live issues affecting regional peace and security that gives practical meaning to having a common position, to wanting to play a central role. The Asean political-security pillar is not sufficiently envisaged even on paper, let alone constructed in practice. Asean needs the kind of leadership as shown by its founding fathers to deal with the new regional geopolitical challenges, especially potential conflicts and their resolution. It cannot rest on the laurels of undoubted success in economic cooperation, and its greater future prospect through the Asean Economic Community, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or even the Trans-Pacific Partnership. With threat to the peace, all this will be "value-at-risk." Tan Sri Dr Munir Majid, chairman of Bank Muamalat, is visiting senior fellow at LSE Ideas (Centre for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy.] He is the author of 9/11 and the Attack on Muslims. |
| Posted: SINGAPORE: Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports fell slightly in July, roughly in line with expectations, but some indicators continued to point to a recovery in the city-state’s manufacturing sector. The wealthy South-East Asian city-state said shipments from locally-based manufacturers excluding oil products fell 0.7% month-on-month in July after seasonal adjustments, reversing from June's 3.3% gain. But no-noil retained imports (NORI) of intermediate goods – a leading indicator of future exports – rose to S$5.2bil in July 2013 from S$5bil in the previous month after seasonal adjustments. Singapore's total trade rose by 5.8% in July 2013, turning around from the 6.2% decrease in the previous month, trade agency International Enterprises Singapore said in a statement on Monday. IE Singapore said earlier this week it expected exports to pick up modestly in coming months in tandem with the projected gradual recovery in global demand. "The improvement in NORI bodes well in the medium to longer term for the productive capacity of the economy. In terms of total trade, the growth is part of the regional trend," said CIMB regional economist Song Seng Wun. "All in all, it was a decent set of numbers reflecting a modest recovery on the tech side, plus a lift from shipyards and chemical facilities," he added. Singapore on Monday raised its 2013 growth forecast to 2.5% to 3.5% from an earlier 1%-3%, citing a recovery in manufacturing and strength in services. The economy grew by 2% in the first half of 2013. Domestic exports of electronics fell 7.6% in July from a year ago, hurt by sharp drops in the shipments of disk media products and personal computer parts. But the value of domestic electronics exports rose to S$4.86bil in July from S$4.47bil in June, according to the IE Singapore data. Singapore does not provide seasonally-adjusted month-on-month percentage changes for exports by product category. Domestic exports of pharmaceuticals, which tends to be very volatile from month to month, fell 32% in July from a year ago but this was partly offset by a 21.8% rise in petrochemicals. Overall, Singapore's no-noil domestic exports declined 0.7% from a year ago, slower than June's year-on-year fall of 8.9%. Economists polled by Reuters had expected no-noil domestic exports to grow by a median 0.4% month-on-month but fall 3.2% from a year ago. Singapore exports most of what it produces and the manufacturing sector accounts for about 20% of the city-state's gross domestic product. According to Monday's second-quarter GDP data, Singapore's manufacturing sector grew by just 0.2% year-on-year. But services including trade and transport and storage grew strongly, indicating the city-state was benefiting from the growth in regional trade. For the whole of 2013, non-oil domestic exports would likely grow by between zero and 1%, lower than an earlier forecast of a 2%-4% expansion, IE Singapore said. – Reuters |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Business News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan