COE prices up across the board

SINGAPORE: Certificate of Entitlement (COE) prices rose in all categories at the close of the bidding exercise on Wednesday.

The COE for small cars rose by 2.9 per cent, or S$2,001, to S$71,001 from S$69,000 in the previous bidding exercise.

The premium for big cars rose by 7.2 per cent, or S$5,800, to S$85,801 from S$80,001.

For goods vehicles and buses, the premium rose by 3.4 per cent, or S$1,888, to S$57,889 from S$56,001.

For motorcycles, the premium rose by 0.4 per cent or S$8 to S$1,920, compared with S$1,912 previously.

The COE price for the Open category rose by 0.13 per cent or S$111 to S$87,000, compared with S$86,889 previously.

Car dealers Channel NewsAsia spoke with attributed the rise in COE premiums to the smaller number of COEs available now.

Chin Kee Min, senior manager at KIA Motors, said: "A slight increase in demand, because of this small number of COEs, is actually translating into a much larger than usual increase in price. Last time, you had a lot of COEs so you mitigated the price jump. But now you have so little COEs. Just an increase of 10 — 20 per cent in sales will cause a big jump in the prices."

— CNA/cc