The Government will not create a different Certificate of Entitlement (COE) category for first-time car buyers, said Minister of State for Transport Josephine Teo in Parliament Tuesday.

Responding to Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar (Ang Mo Kio GRC) who made that suggestion, Mrs Teo said the main difficulty was that it is hard to say why a second-time buyer is always less deserving than a first-time buyer.

She cited an example of a growing household which has had more children and are planning to buy a bigger or second car. A COE system which favours first-time buyers would not be fair to this family, she said.

She added: "Our current Vehicle Quota System (VQS) is not a perfect system but still the most appropriate way to allocate a limited and non-basic resource."