How Singapore property could turn on an election: Andy Mukherjee

SINGAPORE (Nov 30): Singapore is getting ready for polls. Because a single party has ruled uninterrupted since 1959, the real importance of the next election lies in the rare leadership transition that will take place afterwards.

Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat’s well-choreographed elevation as the city-state’s fourth prime minister is expected to signal policy continuity, though immigration is one area where the status quo is starting to look like stagnation. Any change Heng introduces here will be controversial, but it will have a strong bearing on Singapore’s most coveted asset class: property.

Fourteen years ago, Singapore’s third and current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong inherited an economy recovering strongly after the SARS epidemic of 2003. The property market, though, was still in despair amid widespread doubts about Singapore’s long-term competitiveness.

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