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SINGAPORE: The Motor Traders Association of Singapore (MTA) has written to Transport Minister Raymond Lim, offering some suggestions to fine-tune the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) system. In a release issued on Wednesday, the MTA suggested the removal of taxis from the Category A COE quota, and doing away with Category E (open category) COEs. It said COE premiums are now among the highest since the COE system was started in 1990. These high prices come on the back of sharp cuts in the COE quota over the last 12 months. The cuts coupled with the high COE premium have had an adverse impact on both the motor industry and car buyers. It added that under current rules, the situation is expected to worsen this year. On the removal of taxis from the Category A COE quota, it said over the last 20 years, the taxi population has more than doubled. With the liberalisation of taxi supply in 2003, there is now no cap on the taxi population. MTA said taxi operators currently compete with the private car buyer for a COE as they are required to bid for a Category A COE to register their new taxis.This puts additional pressure on the Category A COE premiums. And because they are business enterprises, taxi operators are in a better position to bid more for COEs. The MTA said higher COE premium for taxis translates to higher cost for taxi operators and this higher cost would inevitably be passed to the commuter in the form of higher transport fees. Higher transport costs would lead to higher inflation which will affect everyone. As to doing away with Category E COEs, it said this category can be used to register any vehicle. The MTA has suggested that Category E COEs be removed in order to allow for a more equitable spread of the COE quota and to prevent possible speculation of category E COEs. The MTA is interested in public feedback and these can be sent to [email protected] My feedback is let the buyers bid their own COE.... only with COE than you are allowed to buy the car from AD. AD should only provide price without COE. This should be made mandatory and no AD should submit COE on behalf of buyer. In addition, buyer should get their own financing and financing houses should market the packages directly to buyers and not through ADs that get a cut from deals. MTA should also provide market price statistics on used car markets for make, age and mileage to create transparency for seller so that those cocky sales man do not profit at the expense of car owners.... If not LTA should screw their proposals.... let those crappy car AD go bust. I have no sympathy for them. Not enough sales and not enough scrap for export..... they are screwed.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/sin...1104182/1/.html .....In a release issued on Wednesday, the MTA suggested the removal of taxis from the Category A COE quota, and doing away with Category E (open category) COEs. is high time to remove the taxis from cat A. perhaps reassign cat E to taxis only....