Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan said the government cannot prevent developers from building luxury properties because the country is not practising a communist economy.

"We can't do like that – preventing them from building houses. This is not a communist economy, this is a democratic country.

"They (developers) have a right to build (what they want). We cannot stop them because this is an open country," he told a press conference in Putrajaya today.