Certificate of Entitlement (COE) quotas will be announced every three months instead of six, said the Land Transport Authority on Monday.

This was done with the aim of making the supply of COEs more responsive to the market and de-registrations, it said. It had contemplated quarterly-recycling periods as early as 2010, but felt that such a change would be too drastic.

In its update, LTA also said there will be 717 COEs a month for cars up to 1,600cc and 130bhp – fewer than the previous monthly supply -- for the quota period February to April this year.

For Open COEs, which can be used for any vehicle type but ends up mainly for bigger cars, supply will drop sharply from 522 to 382 a month.

In total, 9,127 COEs will be issued for the period of February to April.

Latest COE prices announced last week ranged between S$70,000 to S$80,000 for small and big cars.