SP Setia sees sizeable contributions from abroad

Developer counts on projects in Australia and Singapore

SHAH ALAM: Property developer SP Setia Bhd has RM5.5bil worth of projects in the pipeline and expects sizeable contributions from its overseas markets – in particular Australia and Singapore.

For projects on the local front, president and chief executive officer Datuk Khor Chap Jen said the company has tweaked its product offering in light of the current property market down-cycle.

“For Singapore alone, there are RM1.4bil worth of projects coming in. We expect significant contribution from overseas,” he told a press conference after the company’s AGM.

Despite the weak property market currently, Khor said SP Setia is still on track to hit its sales target of RM5bil for its current financial year ended Dec 31, 2018 (FY18).

As at March 31, the company had secured sales worth RM1.1bil.

“We’re still sticking to our target. Malaysia... because of the demographic, there’s still demand for houses. From our experience, we changed some of our products in the first quarter and offered smaller units, called starter-homes.

“There’s always demand for these units, especially from first-time home buyers,” he said.

Khor said SP Setia’s strategy of launching affordable homes is in line with Pakatan Harapan’s mani- festo to push for affordable housing.

He also said the abolishment of the goods and services tax (GST) by Pakatan would improve buyers’ sentiment in the current property market down-cycle.

Khor, however, said it was still too early to specifically determine how much of an impact this would have on the local property market.

“It’s hard to say as the Government intends to introduce the sales and service tax. With GST abolished, we do expect to see a pick-up in commercial properties.

“We won’t be reducing the price of our commercial units. They will now just be tax-free,” he said.

Residential units are exempted from GST.

Making good on its election promise, the Pakatan government announced on Wednesday that it is effectively abolishing GST.

From June 1, all goods and servic- es subject to GST will be zero-rated.

Also, in its manifesto, Pakatan said it would impose a time limit for developers to complete the construction of properties on land that they own.

Khor said SP Setia is known to develop its land “as soon as possible”.

The group announced a net profit of RM61.49mil for the first quarter ended March 31, 2018, on the back of RM655.5mil revenue.

Meeting the media: (from left) SP Setia executive vice-president and CFO Choy Kah Yew, Khor, chairman Tan Sri Wan Mohd Zahid Mohd Noordin and deputy president and COO Datuk Wong Tuck Wai at a press conference after the AGM.