Real Estate Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) president Fateh Iskandar Mohamed Mansor said yesterday that the price per tonne of steel had risen to about RM2,700 from RM1,800 previously.

In addition, compliance and development costs also increased by 15% to 18%, he was quoted as saying by The Malaysian Reserve.

Development and compliance fees mainly consist of conversion premiums, development charges, infrastructure contribution fund, as well as connectivity to utility companies.

Fateh Iskandar said it was necessary for all relevant stakeholders to play a bigger role to bring down total development costs which would reduce the absolute price at which a house was sold.

“Property developers definitely have a role to play, as well as the banks,” he said at the 20th National Housing and Property Summit 2017 here.

“But the government — whether state, federal or local authorities — needs to take charge in terms of standardising and reducing land and other compliance costs.

“At the end of the day, these are things that all relevant stakeholders need to look at in order to bring down the overall building costs.”

Fateh Iskandar was also quoted as saying that the ringgit’s depreciation had resulted in a rapid rise in labour costs, adding to the gross development costs.

Currently, the prices of affordable homes built by private developers range from RM300,000 to RM500,000 depending on the state, The Malaysian Reserve reported.

Earlier this year, Putrajaya introduced definitive safeguard duties on imported steel concrete reinforcing bar (rebar) and steel wire rods & deformed bar in coils (SWR & DBIC), on top of a 5% duty on imported steel bars.

It was reported that the duty for rebar was 13.42% for the year ending April 13, 2018, reducing to 12.27% and 11.1% in the next two years respectively.

For SWR & DBIC, the duty started at 13.9% for the year ending April 14, 2018, and would fall to 12.9% and 11.9% in the two subsequent years.