Singapore

CERTIFICATE of entitlement (COE) premiums for passenger cars rose, while those for commercial vehicles and motorcycles remained flat.

Category A - for cars below 1,600 cc or 130 hp - was S$2,776 higher at S$46,778, while Cat B - for cars above 1,600 cc and 130 hp - climbed S$3,710 to S$53,711.

Cat E - the open category which currently tracks Cat B - was up S$2,650 at S$52,751.

Meanwhile, Cat C - for goods vehicles - was down S$8 at S$42,801 and Cat D - for motorcycles - was S$150 lower at S$5,701.

The increase in car COE premiums was "not unexpected", said Nicholas Wong, general manager of authorised Honda distributor Kah Motor. "It was mostly a double whammy of the long booking period and the reduced quota."

There were three weeks between Thursday's bidding exercise and the one preceding it. The interval is usually two weeks, with a bigger gap allowing dealers to collect more orders.

Thursday's tender was also delayed by an extra day due to the National Day public holiday.

The bidding exercise was the first for the new August-October 2017 COE quota, which is 13.7 per cent smaller than the previous May-July quarter.

Most of the contraction is due to the sharply lower number of Cat C COEs - down 59 per cent to 888 per month.

But Cat A has also shrunk - by 4.4 per cent to 3,630 each month - while Cat B has 2.7 per cent less at 2,570 per month.

Only Cat D and E get more COEs; the former is up 5.2 per cent at 954 monthly and the latter has an extra 2.4 per cent at 1,080 a month.

But Mr Wong called the results "predictable" with every change in the quota. Looking ahead, he said: "Premiums should stabilise after this."

One dealer also attributed the jump in the Cat B premium to last month's launch of the new Toyota Harrier Turbo SUV by authorised distributor Borneo Motors Singapore. He said: "I understand the bookings were good."

As for the flat Cat C premium despite the sharp cut in quota, Vincent Tan, managing director of VinCar said that there were still many goods vehicle COEs available. "There are now about 450 COEs per tender. It is still high if you consider that it used to be less than 200 at the start of the year."

Between January and April, there were only about 160 to 180 COEs per tender.

And referring to Cat C's jump from about S$26,000 in April-May to over S$40,000 today, he added: "I think the Cat C premium is at its peak."