ECONOMICS OF HDB CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY 1960-1970

Abstract

Singapore, like most countries, accepts rising standards of living and a high and stable level of employment as her basic economic and social aims. To this end, the Housing and Development Board has made no small contribution. The successful implementation of the two massive five-year building programmes over the last decade has more than broken the backbone of Singapore's housing shortage 3 by the end of 1970, Housing and Development Board has provided shelter to more than 600,000 people or nearly 29 per cent of the entire population. Moreover, less known but equally important is the fact that the construction of these units itself generates a demand for construction labour and materials. Of these dual roles of creating income and employment on the one hand, and improving social welfare on the other, much has already been said about the latter and therefore no further elaboration is needed. This study is thus confined to the Housing and Development Board's construction activity as such. Chapter I discusses the different types of output constructed by the Board over the last decade with particular reference to the size of each unit and the length of period taken to complete them. It is observed that the average size of residential units tends to increase over time. Further, with allowance for the variation of floor area being made, the average time taken to complete a multi-storey block of specified number of storeys is observed to exceed the stipulated time granted by six months. Chapter II attempts to trace the salient factors which would determine the cost of constructing a low-cost housing unit. For this purpose, the multiple regression analysis is sedulously used to evaluate the impact on construction cost arising from economies of scale, the size of flats and inflation pressures experienced over time. The same statistical test was also applied to industrial shops, lock-up shops/ stalls and hawker stalls. A detailed discussion of the different types of construction labour consumed and the pattern of utilization is presented in Chapter III. The number of man-days required to complete a square foot of the units for each year is further computed so as to obtain the average number of man-days required to complete a unit of the different types of flats for each year in the last decade. In Chapter IV a similar analysis is made with respect to the different major construction materials used, It is the intention here to provide information upon which interested bodies can use to alleviate prevailing shortages of building construction materials in view of the fact that such shortages quite frequently delay execution of a number of development programmes. Besides, economic utilization of the materials is possible only when clear understanding of the consumption patterns are reached. Chapter V attempts to measure the labour and major construction materials that would be required to complete the civil engineering, building, sanitary and electrical works of buildings targeted for the third five-year building programme based on the quantities of man-days and building materials estimated to build a typical low-cost public flat. A discussion is also made on the rising costs of labour and construction materials between 1968-72.