Redas President Chia Boon Kuah (pictured) delivered his Lunar New Year message last Friday at the Redas Spring Festival Lunch 2014.
Here’s part of the transcript of his message:
In the last 50 years, property prices have trended steadily upwards in step
with Singapore’s expanding economic growth, inflow of foreign investments,
rising income, increasing costs and growing demands for housing. The market of
late, however, has begun to show signs of decelerating on the heels of
concerted efforts by the government to manage the housing supply and curb
speculative buying.
New housing loans are reportedly on the decline and private home prices in Q4 2013 dipped for the first time in two years. URA’s private residential property price index fell in the 4th Quarter last year. In the next few years a steady supply of physical real estate is expected to come on stream.
Restrictive home loans, the increased supply of residential units and fast-increasing
labour costs have been unnerving to developers, to say the least. However, this
is a resilient industry, and when the going gets tough, we just get more
resourceful!
The measures that the government has implemented are acknowledged as a
long-term necessity to ensure better outcomes for Singaporeans and a healthy
real estate market. And together with the upcoming master plan, this augurs
well for our industry.
In the international arena, Singapore continues to be a desirable place in
which to live. We were ranked sixth on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s where-to-be-born index 2013 which called
out the best places in the world for a baby to be born in. This was based on
indicators such as economic opportunity, health standards and political freedom,
and "quality of life".
This was yet another accolade for Singapore, reaffirming its ‘liveability’
factor. Kudos to URA’s latest master plan which echoes this sentiment and
signals a renewed focus on ‘liveability’, ‘conservation’, ‘inclusiveness’ and
‘community engagement’.
With rapid urbanization and a growing population, Singapore’s focus has
shifted from infrastructure development to creating environments that promote
economic growth, innovation, and quality living. Both public and private
sectors have collectively endeavoured to achieve this balance despite it being
one of the densest countries in the world.
Developers have taken on a key role in shaping this. We take a more
multifaceted approach to creating vibrant and efficient work-live-play spaces.
With new lifestyles and needs borne from the country’s socio-economic progress,
we have had to be especially creative, challenging physical confines and
notions of space in land-scarce Singapore.
As we journey into the next 50 years, the master plan will serve to unlock
and optimize land use for other value-added functions such as recreational
amenities to encourage healthy lifestyles and foster greater community
interaction.
Redas is looking forward to working closely with the government on the next
phase of nation building and real estate development to achieve a distinctive,
high quality living environment for all.
This also means that the level of construction activity will remain high and
continue unabated this year. It is therefore ever more important to re-focus
our collective attention on workplace safety and welfare of the some 300,000
migrant workers in our industry. As developers, we should support our
contractors in showing duty of care for the health, safety and welfare of these
workers. This enhances productivity, which in the long run, translates into
business benefits for all.
We therefore call upon Redas members and their construction partners to up the ante on workplace safety training and communication, as well as to recognise the contributions these workers make to our country. Redas will hold
a forum to identify and discuss common causes behind construction workplace
incidents, key challenges to risk reduction and best practices. Together with
our members, we hope to forge a better way forward.
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