COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s condominium developers said they have halted new projects as building materials were skyrocketing with the collapsing rupee and import protection given to building material producers, triggering a crisis in partially built apartments.
“At present no developers are embarking on new projects, as budgeting even in the short term is impossible,” the Condominium Association of Sri Lanka said in a statement, warning that developers with partially constructed properties and current buyers [and] those who have paid deposits on ‘old pricing’ will jointly face difficulty.
“On the one hand, exponentially increased costs preclude the adherence to previously quoted prices and on the other hand buyers are facing unanticipated cost increases and hiked-up interest rates,” the Association said.
Sri Lanka is trapped in its worst currency crisis with the rupee collapsing from 182 to 360 to the US dollar in the current cycle of printing money to suppress rates.
Inflation has officially soared to 67% in the year to June, with food prices doubling over two years.
Price of steel has shot up 350% from Rs 100,000 a tonne in 2021 to Rs 450,000 in August 2021,
Price of tiles has rocketed from 300% from Rs 150 a square feet Rs 600, while the price of cement has increased from Rs 800 to Rs 3100 per 50kg bag or about 287%.
Prices of some fittings have increase by more than 500%, the Association said, noting that about 600,000 person are employed in the construction industry.
Central bank interest rates suppression and the resulting credit and mal-investment for output gap targeting usually hits the construction sector the hardest.
The sector was also hit in the 2016 and 2018 interest rates suppression and currency collapse cycles, with most of the industry backing the then opposition.
-economynext.com
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