Home prices usually move upwards unless of course the owners are selling below the price they bought for whatever reasons there may be. It may even go up because of coffee prices! Well… (click to read) . Anyway, there’s also the input costs which include salary for construction workers and the cement price. The latter is a significant portion yeah because every home will be using a lot. (not to mention wastages etc) Somewhere online, there were alleged news about a cement price hike of about 20% to 50%. WOW, salary increments expected to be 5% or thereabouts (read here) but the cement prices are doing up by up to 50%? How true is this by the way and who spread it?
Article in edgeprop.my here. Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail inspections have been conducted after complaints from the Johor Master Builders Association (JMBA).
He said, “Responding to the complaint, the Ministry’s Enforcement Division has started its inspections since Feb 3, 2020, by visiting the complainants, factories and issued the Notice 21 provided under the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act 2011 (AKHAP 2011) to relevant industry players to provide the information required by the ministry. From the response of Notice 21 AKHAP 2011 on the four major cement manufacturers, it was found that there was no price increase at the cement manufacturing stage.”
The four main cement manufacturers are Slag Cement (Southern) Sdn Bhd, Lafarge Cement Sdn Bhd, Holcim (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and YTL Perak Hanjoong Simen Sdn Bhd. In fact, if comparisons were made to 2017, it seems that there was a decline in prices and costs for cement at the manufacturing level. He said the Ministry’s enforcement division will provide a detailed report after a thorough investigation has been conducted at the market level. Please do refer to the full Article in edgeprop.my here.
Okay, the ministry has cleared the four cement manufacturers. Perhaps it’s time to wait for the conclusion of the investigations into the market then. Remember yeah, cement is under Price Control and the cement manufacturers cannot increase prices just because they want to increase prices. This was what Saifuddin said last year when there were also rumours of a cement price increase, “This, he said, was because cement price is controlled by the government, and action can be taken against those found to increase prices without government approval, under the Control Of Supplies Act.” (article in thestar.com.my here)
It seems that if property prices are to be rising, it will not be due to the cement price yeah. It may be because the buyer somehow must buy into that area but there were limited number of available units, thus higher demand versus supply will meant prices go up instead. By the way, the below will show the latest price movements based on Malaysian House Price Index. Click to view it at housingwatch.my (A BNM website)
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