Minister for National Development, Mr Lee Chee Sing, also reiterated his commitment to continuously review and improve the housing policy to ensure that this generation and the next will have access to affordable public housing.

Minister said that there are currently about 100 pre-sale HDB projects under construction across the island, which equates to about 80,000 HDB flats.

Summing up the ministerial motion on housing, Mr Lee said the pace of construction would continue and by 2025, there would be about 150 pre-purchase HDB projects under construction island-wide.

The minister said the HDB was not only the largest developer in terms of contract value, but also had more than half as many projects as all private residential contracts combined.

Responding to a number of Opposition MPs' claims that the Government had underestimated the demand for HDB flats while not building enough HDB flats to supply the market, Lee Chi San said the authorities had actually developed a model to predict the exact demand for HDB flats based on the country's marriages, births, deaths, income levels and economic situation, but the coronary epidemic caused a rapid change in the situation and a sudden surge in demand for housing.

The Minister also responded to the oversupply of HDB flats.

He said that demand in the housing market could disappear overnight, for example, when the financial tsunami broke out in 1997, the HDB had 31,000 HDB flats on hold and it took the authorities five years to sell them all.

HDB flat owners also paid a heavy price for this, as the prices of HDB flats remained low, said Lee Chi Sing.

Those who bought their flats before the financial tsunami are in negative equity, or have lost their flats and savings.

The cost of saving for these unsold flats is taxpayers' money that could be better spent on healthcare, education or other areas.