Oct. 17--With small developers being forced out of the market in a poor economy, big developers with high market shares are expected to see sales growth of 15-20 percent this year, according to Land & Houses chief executive Anant Asavabhokin.

Mr Anant said that if the economy improved next year, leading property firms would continue to capture more pieces of a bigger pie.

"Big firms keep expanding and buying land plots as interest rates are really low, which is why land prices remain high," he said. "The 10 big developers are becoming bigger while the ones that really suffer from the downturn are the small and medium-sized firms."The country's wealthiest stock investor and head of the largest residential developer would not say whether the economy has truly recovered, saying only that after the 1997 crisis, a long healing period was needed.

"It's true what they say that this crisis has reached its bottom, but how long are we going to stay [at the bottom] is actually the real question," he said.

Mr Anant said he was concerned about the government's massive stimulus spending, which could be a futile attempt to cure economic diseases if applied in the wrong places. "We've been injecting a lot [of money] while no one knows how much its actually going to take to help bring back the GDP."

He also said tax incentives only served to benefit those who already had plans to buy property, but not as a key factor that attracts buyers. "The major factor that would stimulate the property market is that people have confidence in their job prospects or secure jobs."

The Real Estate Information Center (REIC) forecast this week that the property market would improve in the fourth quarter. It said the number of new housing registrations in Greater Bangkok rose by 2 percent to 54,029 in the first eight months. Of the total, 49 percent were condominiums.

"This proportion came as a surprise to many as people thought the market would be worse. The findings show that the market remains strong," Mr Anant said.

LH plans to increase its condominium proportion to 20 percent of sales from less than 10 percent now. It aims to introduce about four to five condo projects next year.

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