Commercial vehicles owners keen to renew COEs
With six times more Certificates of Entitlement (COE) available for commercial vehicles between May and July, companies see the likely resulting lower prices as a good chance to renew the COEs on their existing vehicles or even buying new ones.
Mr Elvin Goh, sales manager and partner of Promise Movers, told The New Paper he is definitely considering replacing his single truck, which has two years left on its COE.
However, he will not buy a second truck as the "market is quite slow now".
Instead, Mr Goh is considering buying a van as the e-commerce industry "seems to be doing quite well".
Mr Marcus Eu, a director at Malaquay Logistics, said he is also considering buying a bigger van to replace his current one, which was a second-hand purchase that has two years left on its COE.
He said: "If I don't buy it now, the COE might suddenly increase later and I'll lose the chance."
Mr Liang Yiyong, operations manager of Heng Lim Transport, which has more than 20 trucks and prime movers, said: "I have three vehicles with COEs ending in May, and this is a good opportunity to renew them."
However, the predicted decrease in COE prices is not all positive.
Heng Lim Transport also sells second-hand vehicles.
Mr Liang thinks sales of second-hand vehicles will definitely be affected.
He said: "Second-hand stock will sell at a loss, because they were bought with higher COEs. And if COE prices drop a lot, people would rather buy a new vehicle over a second-hand one."
National University of Singapore transport researcher, Dr Lee Der-Horng, said: "The fluctuation of COE supply might not be a good thing. This fluctuation will interrupt the entire market, and the problem will be cyclical. Ten years later, there will be a lot of commercial vehicles that need to be deregistered."
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