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Property: Penang to announce its own threshold for foreigners

Last update: 18/10/2019

GEORGE TOWN, Oct 18  -- The Penang government is expected to set its own threshold  in regard to purchase of property in the state by foreigners.

State Housing, Town and Country Planning and Local Government Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said he would raise the topic for discussion during the State Executive Council meeting before announcing the state's stand.

"We must look at both sides of the coin as the new national threshold for foreigners to buy property is in relation to addressing stratified property and not landed property overhang.

"We will discuss this later as we want to make the announcement formally so the developer will also understand our position," he told reporters here today.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng announced while tabling Budget 2020 last Friday, that the national threshold would be lowered from RM1 million to RM600,000 to reduce the supply overhang of condominiums and apartments amounting to RM8.3 billion in the second quarter of 2019.

Jagdeep who is also Datuk Keramat assemblyman said Penang never adhered to the RM1 million threshold then set by the federal government but had fixed its own, at RM3 million for landed properties on the island and RM1 million for stratified properties. 

So should the state set a threshold different from that proposed by the federal government, the move, he said was not new.

"Even Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin suggested that all states should set their own threshold for property purchases by foreigners; so Penang does not need to follow the national threshold," he said.

According to him, foreigners could only purchase landed property that are priced above RM1 million and stratified property, above RM500,000 on the mainland. 

"There are different circumstances for each state and certainly the national threshold would not be one answer for all," he added.

-- BERNAMA