LTA unveils new categorisation criteria to COE system

It will now consider car's engine power.

On Monday, the Land Transport Authority has unveiled changes to the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) system. 

According to the LTA's announcement, a new set of categorisation criteria will be introduced to better delineate mass market cars from premium cars.

For Category A, LTA will retain the criterion that the engine capacity of the car should not exceed 1,600cc. And add a new criterion that the engine power should not exceed 97kW (equivalent to about 130 bhp).

This change will only be implemented for all cars registered using COEs obtained from the February 2014 first open bidding exercise. This will give car buyers and the industry enough time to adjust to the change.

Here's more from LTA:

LTA acknowledges that most favoured Open Market Value (OMV) as a criterion, and we have evaluated this option carefully. We have found that OMV can fluctuate quite significantly, even for different batches of the same car, due to variations and exchange rates and car model specifications. This means that, the same car model can end up in Category A and Category B at different times.