Sim Lian Group Posts Over 115% Rise in Net Profit
to $7.1 Million for First Half 2004
PRESS RELEASE
Sim Lian Group Posts Over 115% Rise in Net Profit
to $7.1 Million for First Half 2004
SINGAPORE, 25 FEBRUARY 2004 - Mainboard-listed construction and property development company, Sim Lian Group Limited, today announced its results for the half-year ended 31 December 2003. It posted a Group revenue of $81.9 million and profit-before-tax of $9.3 million.
This represents 67.9% increase in profit-before-tax despite a fall of 26.6% in revenue over the corresponding period of the previous year. Group net profit jumped 115.1% to $7.1 million in first half FY2004 compared to $3.3 million in first half FY2003.
The top line decrease was due to a drop in its construction division revenues, owing to a continued slowdown in the local construction sector. The division reported a breakeven for the period under review.
Strong performance by the Group's property development division boosted overall profits. The division saw higher contributions from its three condominium projects The Dew, The Jade and The Pearl @ Mount Faber. This half-year saw maiden contributions from The Pearl @ Mount Faber which saw healthy sales when it was launched in June 2003. The division achieved a good operating profit of $9.6 million.
Commenting on Sim Lian's half-year performance, Group Chairman Kuik Ah Han said, "We are pleased with the performance given the continued slowdown and margin squeeze in both the construction and property sectors. Our property development division is growing steadily, contributing 73% of the Group's first-half revenues and we expect strong contributions from this division in the years ahead."
"Our diversification into property development and making that our second core business has paid off. The synergistic nature of our two core businesses, construction and property development, has allowed us to be highly cost effective in our operations. We see this as an important growth engine for the Group."
About Sim Lian Group
Singapore-based Sim Lian Group Limited is an award-winning construction and property development company listed on the Mainboard of the Singapore Exchange.
Backed by almost 30 years of experience, the Group has built up a strong track record and reputation and has emerged a market leader in the Design & Build residential sector. Sim Lian Construction Co. (Pte) Ltd, the Group's wholly-owned construction arm, is rated an A1 contractor by the Building & Construction Authority which allows it to tender for public sector construction projects of unlimited value.
The Group's portfolio of award-winning projects includes private condominium Melville Park and public housing in Woodlands N5C4 and Bishan West C29. It was also involved in the construction of residential properties like Aquarius by The Park, Palm Gardens and Hillington Green.
The Group's property development arm was set up in 2001 and has since successfully launched three properties - The Dew Executive Condominium and two private condominiums, The Jade and The Pearl @ Mount Faber.
The Group has complementary businesses that include electrical and civil engineering, fabrication and installation of metal works, leasing of mobile sanitation facilities and trading of industrial lubricants.
=====================================================================
For more information, contact:
Diana Kuik
Sim Lian Group Limited
Tel: 67603511
Fax: 67696617
Email: dianakuik@simlian.com.sg
Submitted by Tong Siew Wei, Company Secretary on 25/02/2004 to the SGX
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Saturday, February 7, 2004
False Creek in the Arabian desert
False Creek in the Arabian desert
Except for the dome-like fins on the towers, Dubai Marina is a virtual clone of Vancouver’s famous waterfront community
Trevor Boddy, Vancouver Sun
Saturday, February 07, 2004
DUBAI - Set at the edge of an incongruous lake carved out of the desert, a half-dozen thin apartment towers rose 20 to 40 stories out of the dusty ground, each sprouting from a continuous row of townhouses. I was standing in the middle of a hive of construction cranes in the desert outside Dubai with Blair Hagkull and Robert Lee, both former Vancouverites and senior managers for Concord Pacific Developments, when the realization of what I was looking at began to dawn.
“Take a good look at the shoreline, then tell me what it reminds you of,” said Lee, then general manager of development for Dubai’s EMAAR Properties. I stared at the water’s edge, then had the twinge of a thrill when I saw what looked like a familiar seawall along its edge. When I recognized the familiar forms of the artificial bay, I couldn’t contain my excitement.
“I can’t believe it — you guys have rebuilt False Creek, full-scale, out here in the middle of the Arabian desert.” I turned to a laughing Hagkull and gave him my critical verdict: “It’s Very False Creek!”
It’s actually known as Dubai Marina, but it’s a virtual clone of Vancouver’s own little inlet, created by carving away 49 hectares of sand, lining the depression with stone and filling it with 227 million litres of water diverted from the sea. I soon learned that many more Vancouver-style condominium towers are planned for the site — a squadron worth up to $2 billion, much larger than our Concord Pacific development that inspired it.
The only clue that this was Dubai and not Davie or Drake Street was the dome-like fins at the top of the condo towers. I would later learn that Islamic religious authorities had rejected more fully rounded earlier versions of these as too closely resembling mosques. Dubai Marina is “Very False Creek” in both senses of the phrase: an intensification of the Vancouver original and very false looking to anyone who knows and loves its source. In an era when all architectural history is plundered in Las Vegas’ fantastic new constructions — and even Dubai boasts a saturnine Planet Hollywood — it still seemed strange for me to find so perfect a clone of a Canadian city here.
But what is amazing is not just that Canadian expertise built a mirror image of a prominent part of Vancouver so far away, but what this borrowing says about our city’s place in the world. Dubai Marina reveals the collision of our self-conception with how the world actually regards us.
The similarity of Dubai Marina to False Creek is no accident. In 1999, developer Mohammed Al Abbar toured the world looking for the right approach to the largest housing project ever undertaken in his country and stopped in Vancouver on the last leg of his journey home. One of Al Abbar’s closest advisors had worked at Grosvenor International Property’s Vancouver office with Stanley Kwok in the late 1960s, when the Shanghai-trained architect had just arrived from Hong Kong.
Kwok has since become the eminence grise of Vancouver’s development scene and one of Vancouver’s ultimate power brokers, counting among his accomplishments the top job at BC Place Corporation and his role as master planner for Concord Pacific. He also played a key role in shaping the city real-estate department’s plans for Southeast False Creek. While strolling the False Creek seawall with Kwok and then-assistant Robert Lee, Al Abbar was struck by the notion that Concord Pacific-style towers grouped around an artificial marina would be the best possible option for his immense Dubai housing project. Kwok was hired then and there to start working on the design. Within weeks of his visit and on Kwok’s recommendation, Al Abbar lured away from Concord Pacific marketer Lee, development manager Hagkull and others. “We had a week to decide whether to move our families to a place none of us had ever been to,” Hagkull says. They could not even find Dubai on a map.
Kwok said his original concept for Vancouver’s Concord Pacific development came out of 1970s tropical resorts, combined with the tall, thin towers of Hong Kong he knew well from working there. To these distant sources was added something already established in Vancouver’s False Creek South — a commitment to mixing social classes and building community and wealth for all through public amenities like parks, day-care centres and arts facilities.
This social diversity is missing in the Dubai project, designed and built as it was by imperial fiat, not democratic process. The will and financial wherewithal of EMAAR’s Al Abbar and the company’s effective owner, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, made Dubai Marina materialize with blinding speed because the company functioned as developer, banker, marketer, city planning department and even community, all rolled into one and all rolled out instantly.
But the tiniest of Dubai Marina’s details echo their Vancouver source. The first building constructed there was a light-filled “pre-sales centre” for prospective buyers, a near-twin to Concord Pacific’s slick pavilion which stands on the shores of False Creek, containing a similarly room-filling site model built by the very same Vancouver technicians.
The video theatre is a crucial stage in the sales sequence in both Vancouver and Dubai versions, and their walls ring with the same schmaltzy music and “bold new tomorrow” narration — even if the actors in the Dubai clips wear burnooses and chadors and speak Arabic, instead of sporting Tilley hats and Gore-Tex anoraks and speaking English, Cantonese and Mandarin as they do here. Vancouver prototypes are tracked with ghostly precision in computer-graphic suite tours of Dubai Marina and digital simulations of apartment vistas over the desert and artificial bay, plus the hard sell of furnished mock-up suites and marketing brochures: Is it live, or is it Mahmoud-Ex?
I had a hunch that Dubai might prove a distant cousin to Vancouver even before I spent a few weeks teaching architecture at the American University Sharjah just outside the city. But I discovered there are more profound lessons to be learned from this curious and diverting doubling between Gulf of Arabia and Gulf of Georgia.
Both Dubai and Vancouver are what I call “portal cities” — 21st-century entrepots of business, ideas and, most of all, people. More than just ports, airports or even data-ports, portal cities are points of connection that trade in ideas, lifestyles and zones of refuge.
Viewed positively, a portal city concentrates into its streets all the best on offer in this post-industrial, post-national world. Viewed negatively, they are the balmy resorts where the rich, the connected and the corporate will increasingly find refuge from the dire problems swamping the rest of the planet — Grand Cayman or Monte Carlo on a metropolitan scale.
The essential industry in portal cities is housing development, and the fire in their economic engines is an enhanced quality of life, strengthened through communities of moneyed others seeking the same sense of creative refuge. These cities are unpredictably inventive in cultural matters, as the now-tired metropoles of Northeastern North America and Europe once were, places where music and cuisines are fused artfully. Miami is the portal city for all of Latin America, and Chileans, Brazilians and Colombians are now far more likely to meet there than on their own continent. Dubai has an analogous function as the shopping, business, cultural, even drug- and sex-trade outlet for the ultra-conservative Islamic Kingdoms all around it.
And us? Vancouver is the portal city for a group changing the world more than all the Latins, Arabs and even Americans put together: the Chinese, and more specifically, the 50-million-strong diaspora of overseas Chinese, an entrepreneurial group now without rivals as the most electric force in reshaping global industry and commerce. Dubai Marina is a challenge to the emerging self-conception of Vancouver, an adolescent city that has only recently started coming to terms with who it is and how the world regards it. (Cruelly but somewhat accurately, I’ve heard it described elsewhere as a “bimbo town.”) I, for one, have never seen Vancouverites of all ethnicities celebrate Chinese New Year as they did this year. Is this new reality starting to sink in?
But a disturbing signal comes from Vancouver’s planning department, which confirmed in December that no one is building office buildings downtown here any more, only condominium towers. Even worse, we learned this week that Vancouver’s most lauded office tower of the 1970s, the cable-supported former Westcoast Transmission building, will soon be converted into condominium apartments. Many of downtown Vancouver’s condos are sold to a mobile golden class speculating globally and many more to Canadian baby boomers waiting to retire. Don’t be distracted by the vital energy of younger renters occupying “safe haven” condos these days, giving our downtown its temporary patina of diversity — this group will be kicked out just as soon as the arthritis kicks in.
Judging by Dubai Marina, the world regards Vancouver affectionately, though as a jejune resort, not a mature and serious metropolis. Anyone not desiring a descent by this city into permanent status as a “resort” needs to join the debate soon, because perceptions build realities even quicker for cities than for people.
Dubai’s thinking in this regard may be more advanced than ours, obsessed as we are for the moment with our condo boom, plus an Olympic building crest to come. The Jan. 4 edition of their daily English-language newspaper Khaleej Times drives home that point, saying: “Dubai has to start thinking less about construction as a driver of growth, and more about qualitative improvements that can make assets more productive.”
That may be one reason why Lee, Hagkull and Daniel Hajjar, a Canadian who was project architect for the Dubai Marina project, are all still in the United Arab Emirates, although the first two are with new employers. More impressively, Lee and Hagkull are now raising families in a city they regard as safe, stimulating and full of superb infrastructure.
And they’re not alone. While in Dubai, I met many other members of the expatriate Canadian community there: Ismaili Muslims with families in North Vancouver, bankers from Calgary, building product salesmen from Kamloops, SFU students starting in the hotel business, Quebecoises out for adventure. “We were astonished to learn that there are now 4,000 Canadians resident in the Emirates,” Christopher Thornley of Canada’s U.A.E. Embassy told me, “which makes ours one of the largest Western business communities here — and the only reason we know this figure is that they all chose to register with us in the weeks of worry after Sept. 11.”
Even though we Canadians are the world’s greatest exporters, we don’t often think of ourselves as such. Because of our inundation with the cultural production of the United States, we seldom see how far and wide our ideas and innovations have already spread.
We have been a nation of chameleons, but may be changing. Personally, it took coming to Dubai to understand Vancouver’s emerging role in a broad world flush with modernity, the churn of change.
Trevor Boddy’s report from Dubai was part of a fellowship funded by the Aga Khan Awards for Islamic Architecture, and American University Sharjah.
Except for the dome-like fins on the towers, Dubai Marina is a virtual clone of Vancouver’s famous waterfront community
Trevor Boddy, Vancouver Sun
Saturday, February 07, 2004
DUBAI - Set at the edge of an incongruous lake carved out of the desert, a half-dozen thin apartment towers rose 20 to 40 stories out of the dusty ground, each sprouting from a continuous row of townhouses. I was standing in the middle of a hive of construction cranes in the desert outside Dubai with Blair Hagkull and Robert Lee, both former Vancouverites and senior managers for Concord Pacific Developments, when the realization of what I was looking at began to dawn.
“Take a good look at the shoreline, then tell me what it reminds you of,” said Lee, then general manager of development for Dubai’s EMAAR Properties. I stared at the water’s edge, then had the twinge of a thrill when I saw what looked like a familiar seawall along its edge. When I recognized the familiar forms of the artificial bay, I couldn’t contain my excitement.
“I can’t believe it — you guys have rebuilt False Creek, full-scale, out here in the middle of the Arabian desert.” I turned to a laughing Hagkull and gave him my critical verdict: “It’s Very False Creek!”
It’s actually known as Dubai Marina, but it’s a virtual clone of Vancouver’s own little inlet, created by carving away 49 hectares of sand, lining the depression with stone and filling it with 227 million litres of water diverted from the sea. I soon learned that many more Vancouver-style condominium towers are planned for the site — a squadron worth up to $2 billion, much larger than our Concord Pacific development that inspired it.
The only clue that this was Dubai and not Davie or Drake Street was the dome-like fins at the top of the condo towers. I would later learn that Islamic religious authorities had rejected more fully rounded earlier versions of these as too closely resembling mosques. Dubai Marina is “Very False Creek” in both senses of the phrase: an intensification of the Vancouver original and very false looking to anyone who knows and loves its source. In an era when all architectural history is plundered in Las Vegas’ fantastic new constructions — and even Dubai boasts a saturnine Planet Hollywood — it still seemed strange for me to find so perfect a clone of a Canadian city here.
But what is amazing is not just that Canadian expertise built a mirror image of a prominent part of Vancouver so far away, but what this borrowing says about our city’s place in the world. Dubai Marina reveals the collision of our self-conception with how the world actually regards us.
The similarity of Dubai Marina to False Creek is no accident. In 1999, developer Mohammed Al Abbar toured the world looking for the right approach to the largest housing project ever undertaken in his country and stopped in Vancouver on the last leg of his journey home. One of Al Abbar’s closest advisors had worked at Grosvenor International Property’s Vancouver office with Stanley Kwok in the late 1960s, when the Shanghai-trained architect had just arrived from Hong Kong.
Kwok has since become the eminence grise of Vancouver’s development scene and one of Vancouver’s ultimate power brokers, counting among his accomplishments the top job at BC Place Corporation and his role as master planner for Concord Pacific. He also played a key role in shaping the city real-estate department’s plans for Southeast False Creek. While strolling the False Creek seawall with Kwok and then-assistant Robert Lee, Al Abbar was struck by the notion that Concord Pacific-style towers grouped around an artificial marina would be the best possible option for his immense Dubai housing project. Kwok was hired then and there to start working on the design. Within weeks of his visit and on Kwok’s recommendation, Al Abbar lured away from Concord Pacific marketer Lee, development manager Hagkull and others. “We had a week to decide whether to move our families to a place none of us had ever been to,” Hagkull says. They could not even find Dubai on a map.
Kwok said his original concept for Vancouver’s Concord Pacific development came out of 1970s tropical resorts, combined with the tall, thin towers of Hong Kong he knew well from working there. To these distant sources was added something already established in Vancouver’s False Creek South — a commitment to mixing social classes and building community and wealth for all through public amenities like parks, day-care centres and arts facilities.
This social diversity is missing in the Dubai project, designed and built as it was by imperial fiat, not democratic process. The will and financial wherewithal of EMAAR’s Al Abbar and the company’s effective owner, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, made Dubai Marina materialize with blinding speed because the company functioned as developer, banker, marketer, city planning department and even community, all rolled into one and all rolled out instantly.
But the tiniest of Dubai Marina’s details echo their Vancouver source. The first building constructed there was a light-filled “pre-sales centre” for prospective buyers, a near-twin to Concord Pacific’s slick pavilion which stands on the shores of False Creek, containing a similarly room-filling site model built by the very same Vancouver technicians.
The video theatre is a crucial stage in the sales sequence in both Vancouver and Dubai versions, and their walls ring with the same schmaltzy music and “bold new tomorrow” narration — even if the actors in the Dubai clips wear burnooses and chadors and speak Arabic, instead of sporting Tilley hats and Gore-Tex anoraks and speaking English, Cantonese and Mandarin as they do here. Vancouver prototypes are tracked with ghostly precision in computer-graphic suite tours of Dubai Marina and digital simulations of apartment vistas over the desert and artificial bay, plus the hard sell of furnished mock-up suites and marketing brochures: Is it live, or is it Mahmoud-Ex?
I had a hunch that Dubai might prove a distant cousin to Vancouver even before I spent a few weeks teaching architecture at the American University Sharjah just outside the city. But I discovered there are more profound lessons to be learned from this curious and diverting doubling between Gulf of Arabia and Gulf of Georgia.
Both Dubai and Vancouver are what I call “portal cities” — 21st-century entrepots of business, ideas and, most of all, people. More than just ports, airports or even data-ports, portal cities are points of connection that trade in ideas, lifestyles and zones of refuge.
Viewed positively, a portal city concentrates into its streets all the best on offer in this post-industrial, post-national world. Viewed negatively, they are the balmy resorts where the rich, the connected and the corporate will increasingly find refuge from the dire problems swamping the rest of the planet — Grand Cayman or Monte Carlo on a metropolitan scale.
The essential industry in portal cities is housing development, and the fire in their economic engines is an enhanced quality of life, strengthened through communities of moneyed others seeking the same sense of creative refuge. These cities are unpredictably inventive in cultural matters, as the now-tired metropoles of Northeastern North America and Europe once were, places where music and cuisines are fused artfully. Miami is the portal city for all of Latin America, and Chileans, Brazilians and Colombians are now far more likely to meet there than on their own continent. Dubai has an analogous function as the shopping, business, cultural, even drug- and sex-trade outlet for the ultra-conservative Islamic Kingdoms all around it.
And us? Vancouver is the portal city for a group changing the world more than all the Latins, Arabs and even Americans put together: the Chinese, and more specifically, the 50-million-strong diaspora of overseas Chinese, an entrepreneurial group now without rivals as the most electric force in reshaping global industry and commerce. Dubai Marina is a challenge to the emerging self-conception of Vancouver, an adolescent city that has only recently started coming to terms with who it is and how the world regards it. (Cruelly but somewhat accurately, I’ve heard it described elsewhere as a “bimbo town.”) I, for one, have never seen Vancouverites of all ethnicities celebrate Chinese New Year as they did this year. Is this new reality starting to sink in?
But a disturbing signal comes from Vancouver’s planning department, which confirmed in December that no one is building office buildings downtown here any more, only condominium towers. Even worse, we learned this week that Vancouver’s most lauded office tower of the 1970s, the cable-supported former Westcoast Transmission building, will soon be converted into condominium apartments. Many of downtown Vancouver’s condos are sold to a mobile golden class speculating globally and many more to Canadian baby boomers waiting to retire. Don’t be distracted by the vital energy of younger renters occupying “safe haven” condos these days, giving our downtown its temporary patina of diversity — this group will be kicked out just as soon as the arthritis kicks in.
Judging by Dubai Marina, the world regards Vancouver affectionately, though as a jejune resort, not a mature and serious metropolis. Anyone not desiring a descent by this city into permanent status as a “resort” needs to join the debate soon, because perceptions build realities even quicker for cities than for people.
Dubai’s thinking in this regard may be more advanced than ours, obsessed as we are for the moment with our condo boom, plus an Olympic building crest to come. The Jan. 4 edition of their daily English-language newspaper Khaleej Times drives home that point, saying: “Dubai has to start thinking less about construction as a driver of growth, and more about qualitative improvements that can make assets more productive.”
That may be one reason why Lee, Hagkull and Daniel Hajjar, a Canadian who was project architect for the Dubai Marina project, are all still in the United Arab Emirates, although the first two are with new employers. More impressively, Lee and Hagkull are now raising families in a city they regard as safe, stimulating and full of superb infrastructure.
And they’re not alone. While in Dubai, I met many other members of the expatriate Canadian community there: Ismaili Muslims with families in North Vancouver, bankers from Calgary, building product salesmen from Kamloops, SFU students starting in the hotel business, Quebecoises out for adventure. “We were astonished to learn that there are now 4,000 Canadians resident in the Emirates,” Christopher Thornley of Canada’s U.A.E. Embassy told me, “which makes ours one of the largest Western business communities here — and the only reason we know this figure is that they all chose to register with us in the weeks of worry after Sept. 11.”
Even though we Canadians are the world’s greatest exporters, we don’t often think of ourselves as such. Because of our inundation with the cultural production of the United States, we seldom see how far and wide our ideas and innovations have already spread.
We have been a nation of chameleons, but may be changing. Personally, it took coming to Dubai to understand Vancouver’s emerging role in a broad world flush with modernity, the churn of change.
Trevor Boddy’s report from Dubai was part of a fellowship funded by the Aga Khan Awards for Islamic Architecture, and American University Sharjah.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Investing in architecture and urban design to create an attractive urban environment
Investing in architecture and urban design to create an attractive urban environment
President of REDAS,
Mr Kwee Liong Keng,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good evening.
Challenges facing Singapore
The past few years have been challenging ones for Singapore. Global terrorism, the Iraq war and the SARS outbreak - all these have taken their toll on our economy. We have tackled these immediate challenges head on, without flinching.
But even as we do so, we cannot lose sight of the longer-term challenge facing us, in the form of increasing competition among cities for the same global pool of investments, talents and jobs.
2 How we respond to this challenge will determine whether we succeed in the long-term or not.
Responding to challenges
3 The Government's response to the economic downturn was a decisive one. We announced a $11.3 billion off-budget package in Oct 2001 to help individuals and businesses cope with the downturn. Measures included property tax rebates and reduction in stamp duty rates. When SARS struck in early 2003, the Government again responded quickly with additional help measures in the form of a SARS relief package.
4 Now, the economy appears to be on the path of recovery. MTI's advance estimates show that gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter expanded by 1%, in real terms, over the same period in 2002. Our ability to overcome the setbacks caused by SARS and the economic downturn is possible only because of the close partnership among the Government, the private sector and the people sector.
5 I wish to put on record my appreciation to REDAS for giving us timely feedback and inputs on the property market and related policies over the past years. Your inputs have helped us to maintain stability in the property market, notwithstanding the difficult economic conditions. Given that the economy has shown signs of recovery over the last two months, let us hope that our efforts have paid off and the property market will recover together with the rest of the economy.
6 Looking beyond the downturn, our greater challenge lies in responding to intensifying global competition. The Economic Review Committee has developed a blueprint to re-structure our economy, and position us for growth in the longer term. We have embarked on measures to lower the cost of doing business in Singapore. But the key to our success going forward lies in our ability to attract and retain more talented, educated, ambitious, hard-working people to come to Singapore to work and to stay.
7 Tonight, my challenge to all of us in this room is to think of how we, in ways that we are responsible for, can help build an attractive city, a great city, a city that stands head and shoulders above the sea of cities around us, one that will help us attract talent and investments, that will enable us to stay ahead of the competition, that will make Singaporeans proud to call home.
8 Many factors contribute to making this an "attractive city": good governance, safety and security, a clean and green environment, good infrastructure, a vibrant city life and a high-quality and distinctive urban environment.
9 We have done well especially in the first few areas of governance, safety and security, pollution-free environment and good infrastructure. But good is not enough.
10 The competition among cities is a relentless and cut-throat one. Newsweek published a special issue, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum held in Singapore recently. It was entitled Asian Boom Towns. In its foreword, it said " Asia has the fastest rate of urbanization in human history. Its prospects will flower or fail in its cities." Which will it be, we cannot know for sure. But one thing we do know is that cities like Shanghai and Seoul, KL and Kolkata, Bangalore and Bangkok, are booming and busily re-inventing themselves.
Singapore's reputation for innovative and efficient solutions to the problems that plague large cities, is well recognized, whether it is combating traffic jams or water shortage or SARS. In an article entitled, "The City that Could", it said" when it comes to finding the quick fix, Singapore stays on the cutting edge. What will it come up with next?".
11 The competition is not only among different countries but even within countries. ST today had an article describing how cities in the US are engaged in a "Darwinian fight for survival". Cities like Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh are losing out to more exciting ones like Seattle, Boston and Denver. Mayors in all the major cities are scrambling to make their cities more attractive for young people, and a gateway for new immigrants.
12 The lesson for us is clear. If we are to remain relevant and successful, our city must be an attractive place not just for successful people but also success-hungry people.
It must have a culture that welcomes diversity, tolerates differences, and embraces change. It must appreciate good ideas and reward achievements. And finally, it must not just be a livable city but an enjoyable city, one with a high-quality and distinctive urban environment. This is where our developers, urban planners, architects and designers have a special role to play in order to give Singapore that winning edge in the global competition for talent and investments.
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Learning from Other Cities
13 Just look at what architecture and urban design has done for London. In the 1980s, London, one of the world's major financial centres, needed to look beyond the city centre to expand its financial centre district. The planners picked the former London Docklands for this expansion.
14 Over the last two decades, Canary Wharf has become the success story of the regeneration efforts at the London Docklands.
And what a transformation: striking modern office buildings with complementary facilities like restaurants and shops set alongside beautifully landscaped open spaces and served by well-designed public rail transport facilities. It houses the world's top banking, insurance and media corporations, and attracts a 50,000-strong working population, many of whom live in the residential developments that have sprouted up along River Thames. With its rich business, art and river-based recreational activities, Canary Wharf today has become a vibrant part of London.
15 Not wanting to be left behind, the City of London has also embarked on its own transformation effort. Projects, such as the Tate Modern Museum, the Millennium Bridge and the new City Hall designed by world-class architects, have provided the city with a new design focus. The City of London has even shed its traditional dislike for tall buildings, with the new Swiss Re Building.
16 Besides London, many other cities are also busy reinventing themselves. Take for example, Roppongi Hills, Tokyo's latest landmark. By integrating office, residential, hotel, retail, and cultural functions with parks and plazas, it is a showpiece of how one can live, work and play in one integrated development. Since its opening early this year, 25 million people have set foot in the development.
17 China's biggest cities are also undergoing rapid development and urban rejuvenation. They have sought to create a distinctive image for their skylines to capture the public's imagination worldwide and serve as a branding for their cities.
18 Shanghai is a prime example. It has been rapidly building up as China's financial centre in the past decade. Prominent high-rise icons such as the Pearl Oriental Tower, Jinmao Building and the proposed World Financial Centre in Pudong have given the city a distinctive image as China's financial capital.
These buildings have been featured prominently worldwide and are synonymous with the modern image of Shanghai.
19 Even second-tier cities like Chengdu, Dalian, and Tianjin are realizing the importance of creating a vibrant livable city to enhance their competitiveness and attract investments.
20 Further afield, cities in the Middle East are undergoing a building boom. Dubai is positioning itself as a financial hub and global exhibition and convention centre in the Gulf region. The Burj Al Arab Hotel stands as the symbolic icon of Dubai. Together with the Palm Island project and the new financial centre, these developments have underlined Dubai's efforts to project itself as the leading services centre in the region.
21 If cities around the globe, including established ones like London and newcomers like Dubai, have the will to regenerate and renew its city, can we afford to stand still?
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Value-for-money Architecture
22 Many may argue that spending on architecture and good design during lean times seems frivolous. Last year, during the Budget debate in Parliament, MPs raised concerns about extravagance and waste in some public sector buildings. These are valid concerns. I also feel we can do without some of the more expensive fittings like plasma screen TVs and water fountains in public buildings. But, we should be careful not to swing to the other extreme. Frugality in the use of public funds should not be translated into lower quality developments as a whole. Our buildings should not be devoid of any architectural merit and character. They are there for a long time to come and define the image and character of a place.
23 The economy drive that the public sector has embarked on is not about shoddy work or cost cutting at the expense of quality. Instead, it is about prioritization and value-for-money when considering projects to undertake.
If we do our sums and look at the long-term economic returns that an attractive city brings, I believe that our investment in enhancing the city is money worth spending.
24 The Tate Modern Museum costs £134 million or S$388 million to build, a large sum by any standard. But within 18 months of its opening, it attracted more than 7 million visitors. If we spread the development cost over the building's lifespan, and worked out the huge spin-offs from tourism, perhaps Tate Modern was not so expensive after all!
25 London's success through architecture and urban design excellence has also rubbed off on other U.K cities like Manchester and Newcastle, where architecturally distinctive buildings, bridges and open spaces have been developed, reflecting the cultural and artistic resurgence in these cities.
Cultivating an Appreciation for Architecture
26 The quality of Singapore's built environment has improved significantly since the rapid urbanisation in the 70s and 80s. Our city has achieved a signature skyline and new public buildings like the new Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay have become a waterfront landmark.
27 But we can do more to further enhance the quality of Singapore's environment. One way is to inculcate in our public a culture that appreciates good design in the built environment. There is already growing public appreciation in Singapore for good design as the economy develops and society matures. But we need to take it a step further. URA has started holding architecture exhibitions and competitions to encourage awareness of and to promote excellence in our building and architectural industry. I hope that, over time, we can inculcate an appreciation of the value that good design and good architecture can bring to a city. With this appreciation comes acknowledgement by authorities and decision makers, and action by developers and professionals.
Collectively, this will lead to more well-designed and architecturally superior buildings and structures which will enhance the fabric of our city.
>>back to top
Singapore's growing Business, Financial and Entertainment Hub
28 On its part, the Government will continue to push ahead with distinctive developments, in order to ensure that Singapore does not lag behind in the face of the global competition among cities. URA exhibited some exciting plans for the City Centre in June this year. In particular, an exciting vision of the Downtown at Marina Bay was presented. The new Downtown is envisaged as a global business and financial hub with prime office spaces, complemented by a full range of residential and convention facilities, shops, eating establishments as well as a ring of arts, cultural and entertainment activities around Marina Bay.
29 The Downtown at Marina Bay is starting to come alive, with the completion of The Esplanade Theatres on the Bay and the Merlion Park. URA has also successfully sold two sites around the Bay. The One Raffles Quay project will meet the increasing demand for offices with larger floor plates. The second sale site developed by City Development is currently planned as a mixed residential and commercial development, to meet the increasing demand for city living.
30 The exciting potential of the Bay has not escaped activity organisers who are gravitating towards the Bayfront to hold their events there, even without permanent infrastructure. In July this year, Zoukout brought some 15,000 partygoers to the open area at the Marina Bayfront. I went to recce the place and saw for myself the lively party atmosphere, with partygoers enjoying themselves against the back-drop of our impressive city skyline.
31 I understand that the F1 boat race last month brought about 70,000 spectators to the Bay to enjoy the event. The Singapore Marathon to be held next month will bring runners along the promenade around Marina Bay and into Marina South before finishing in the Padang. I also hear that Mediaworks plans to screen outdoor movies at the Bayfront towards the end of this year. All these developments are very much welcomed.
Building Infrastructure at Downtown @ Marina Bay
32 Clearly, there is so much more that can happen in this area, when new developments come on stream and the area is made more accessible. URA is actively planning for the release of the site for the development of a Business and Financial Centre (BFC). The BFC has recently received positive feedback and encouraging support from investors, professionals and the public during the consultation on the City Centre exhibition in June. The development of the BFC will ensure Singapore stays competitive and keeps up with new developments in global and regional financial centres.
To prepare for the launch of the BFC, URA is working to put in place the necessary infrastructure, such as the Common Services Tunnel, and enhancement works to improve accessibility to the area. Two key projects that URA is studying in detail are the extension of the existing promenade from One Fullerton around Marina Bay to Marina Centre, and a new, low-level bridge for pedestrians and vehicles to connect Marina Centre to the Bayfront. These two projects will make the new Downtown a more accessible and more attractive place.
33 With the proposed waterfront promenade extension, visitors to Marina Bay will be able to stroll along the waterfront to the Marina City Park. Besides being able to enjoy a scenic view of the skyline, pavilions and kiosks along the promenade will provide additional amenities to these visitors.
34 The proposed new bridge will be the gateway connecting the cultural, hotel and entertainment uses in Marina Centre to the other parts of the Bay, both for pedestrians as well as drivers. Visitors will be able to walk from the Esplanade Theatres all the way to the Bayfront amidst tropical landscaping along the promenade. Short-term activity-generating uses and leisure activities will be introduced at the Bayfront.
35 The proposed bridge and the waterfront promenade will open up the Bayfront and add to the current life and vibrancy in and around the Bay. If designed to world-class standards, they can be the landmarks for the New Downtown as well as Singapore. URA is actively looking into making these new infrastructures a reality.
36 The Downtown at Marina Bay has the potential to bring so much vibrancy and life to our city. We, both in the public and private sectors, must seize this opportunity to develop it well.
If we succeed, it can make a significant difference to our urban cityscape and maintain our reputation as the "city that can".
37 Thank you.
President of REDAS,
Mr Kwee Liong Keng,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good evening.
Challenges facing Singapore
The past few years have been challenging ones for Singapore. Global terrorism, the Iraq war and the SARS outbreak - all these have taken their toll on our economy. We have tackled these immediate challenges head on, without flinching.
But even as we do so, we cannot lose sight of the longer-term challenge facing us, in the form of increasing competition among cities for the same global pool of investments, talents and jobs.
2 How we respond to this challenge will determine whether we succeed in the long-term or not.
Responding to challenges
3 The Government's response to the economic downturn was a decisive one. We announced a $11.3 billion off-budget package in Oct 2001 to help individuals and businesses cope with the downturn. Measures included property tax rebates and reduction in stamp duty rates. When SARS struck in early 2003, the Government again responded quickly with additional help measures in the form of a SARS relief package.
4 Now, the economy appears to be on the path of recovery. MTI's advance estimates show that gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter expanded by 1%, in real terms, over the same period in 2002. Our ability to overcome the setbacks caused by SARS and the economic downturn is possible only because of the close partnership among the Government, the private sector and the people sector.
5 I wish to put on record my appreciation to REDAS for giving us timely feedback and inputs on the property market and related policies over the past years. Your inputs have helped us to maintain stability in the property market, notwithstanding the difficult economic conditions. Given that the economy has shown signs of recovery over the last two months, let us hope that our efforts have paid off and the property market will recover together with the rest of the economy.
6 Looking beyond the downturn, our greater challenge lies in responding to intensifying global competition. The Economic Review Committee has developed a blueprint to re-structure our economy, and position us for growth in the longer term. We have embarked on measures to lower the cost of doing business in Singapore. But the key to our success going forward lies in our ability to attract and retain more talented, educated, ambitious, hard-working people to come to Singapore to work and to stay.
7 Tonight, my challenge to all of us in this room is to think of how we, in ways that we are responsible for, can help build an attractive city, a great city, a city that stands head and shoulders above the sea of cities around us, one that will help us attract talent and investments, that will enable us to stay ahead of the competition, that will make Singaporeans proud to call home.
8 Many factors contribute to making this an "attractive city": good governance, safety and security, a clean and green environment, good infrastructure, a vibrant city life and a high-quality and distinctive urban environment.
9 We have done well especially in the first few areas of governance, safety and security, pollution-free environment and good infrastructure. But good is not enough.
10 The competition among cities is a relentless and cut-throat one. Newsweek published a special issue, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum held in Singapore recently. It was entitled Asian Boom Towns. In its foreword, it said " Asia has the fastest rate of urbanization in human history. Its prospects will flower or fail in its cities." Which will it be, we cannot know for sure. But one thing we do know is that cities like Shanghai and Seoul, KL and Kolkata, Bangalore and Bangkok, are booming and busily re-inventing themselves.
Singapore's reputation for innovative and efficient solutions to the problems that plague large cities, is well recognized, whether it is combating traffic jams or water shortage or SARS. In an article entitled, "The City that Could", it said" when it comes to finding the quick fix, Singapore stays on the cutting edge. What will it come up with next?".
11 The competition is not only among different countries but even within countries. ST today had an article describing how cities in the US are engaged in a "Darwinian fight for survival". Cities like Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh are losing out to more exciting ones like Seattle, Boston and Denver. Mayors in all the major cities are scrambling to make their cities more attractive for young people, and a gateway for new immigrants.
12 The lesson for us is clear. If we are to remain relevant and successful, our city must be an attractive place not just for successful people but also success-hungry people.
It must have a culture that welcomes diversity, tolerates differences, and embraces change. It must appreciate good ideas and reward achievements. And finally, it must not just be a livable city but an enjoyable city, one with a high-quality and distinctive urban environment. This is where our developers, urban planners, architects and designers have a special role to play in order to give Singapore that winning edge in the global competition for talent and investments.
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Learning from Other Cities
13 Just look at what architecture and urban design has done for London. In the 1980s, London, one of the world's major financial centres, needed to look beyond the city centre to expand its financial centre district. The planners picked the former London Docklands for this expansion.
14 Over the last two decades, Canary Wharf has become the success story of the regeneration efforts at the London Docklands.
And what a transformation: striking modern office buildings with complementary facilities like restaurants and shops set alongside beautifully landscaped open spaces and served by well-designed public rail transport facilities. It houses the world's top banking, insurance and media corporations, and attracts a 50,000-strong working population, many of whom live in the residential developments that have sprouted up along River Thames. With its rich business, art and river-based recreational activities, Canary Wharf today has become a vibrant part of London.
15 Not wanting to be left behind, the City of London has also embarked on its own transformation effort. Projects, such as the Tate Modern Museum, the Millennium Bridge and the new City Hall designed by world-class architects, have provided the city with a new design focus. The City of London has even shed its traditional dislike for tall buildings, with the new Swiss Re Building.
16 Besides London, many other cities are also busy reinventing themselves. Take for example, Roppongi Hills, Tokyo's latest landmark. By integrating office, residential, hotel, retail, and cultural functions with parks and plazas, it is a showpiece of how one can live, work and play in one integrated development. Since its opening early this year, 25 million people have set foot in the development.
17 China's biggest cities are also undergoing rapid development and urban rejuvenation. They have sought to create a distinctive image for their skylines to capture the public's imagination worldwide and serve as a branding for their cities.
18 Shanghai is a prime example. It has been rapidly building up as China's financial centre in the past decade. Prominent high-rise icons such as the Pearl Oriental Tower, Jinmao Building and the proposed World Financial Centre in Pudong have given the city a distinctive image as China's financial capital.
These buildings have been featured prominently worldwide and are synonymous with the modern image of Shanghai.
19 Even second-tier cities like Chengdu, Dalian, and Tianjin are realizing the importance of creating a vibrant livable city to enhance their competitiveness and attract investments.
20 Further afield, cities in the Middle East are undergoing a building boom. Dubai is positioning itself as a financial hub and global exhibition and convention centre in the Gulf region. The Burj Al Arab Hotel stands as the symbolic icon of Dubai. Together with the Palm Island project and the new financial centre, these developments have underlined Dubai's efforts to project itself as the leading services centre in the region.
21 If cities around the globe, including established ones like London and newcomers like Dubai, have the will to regenerate and renew its city, can we afford to stand still?
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Value-for-money Architecture
22 Many may argue that spending on architecture and good design during lean times seems frivolous. Last year, during the Budget debate in Parliament, MPs raised concerns about extravagance and waste in some public sector buildings. These are valid concerns. I also feel we can do without some of the more expensive fittings like plasma screen TVs and water fountains in public buildings. But, we should be careful not to swing to the other extreme. Frugality in the use of public funds should not be translated into lower quality developments as a whole. Our buildings should not be devoid of any architectural merit and character. They are there for a long time to come and define the image and character of a place.
23 The economy drive that the public sector has embarked on is not about shoddy work or cost cutting at the expense of quality. Instead, it is about prioritization and value-for-money when considering projects to undertake.
If we do our sums and look at the long-term economic returns that an attractive city brings, I believe that our investment in enhancing the city is money worth spending.
24 The Tate Modern Museum costs £134 million or S$388 million to build, a large sum by any standard. But within 18 months of its opening, it attracted more than 7 million visitors. If we spread the development cost over the building's lifespan, and worked out the huge spin-offs from tourism, perhaps Tate Modern was not so expensive after all!
25 London's success through architecture and urban design excellence has also rubbed off on other U.K cities like Manchester and Newcastle, where architecturally distinctive buildings, bridges and open spaces have been developed, reflecting the cultural and artistic resurgence in these cities.
Cultivating an Appreciation for Architecture
26 The quality of Singapore's built environment has improved significantly since the rapid urbanisation in the 70s and 80s. Our city has achieved a signature skyline and new public buildings like the new Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay have become a waterfront landmark.
27 But we can do more to further enhance the quality of Singapore's environment. One way is to inculcate in our public a culture that appreciates good design in the built environment. There is already growing public appreciation in Singapore for good design as the economy develops and society matures. But we need to take it a step further. URA has started holding architecture exhibitions and competitions to encourage awareness of and to promote excellence in our building and architectural industry. I hope that, over time, we can inculcate an appreciation of the value that good design and good architecture can bring to a city. With this appreciation comes acknowledgement by authorities and decision makers, and action by developers and professionals.
Collectively, this will lead to more well-designed and architecturally superior buildings and structures which will enhance the fabric of our city.
>>back to top
Singapore's growing Business, Financial and Entertainment Hub
28 On its part, the Government will continue to push ahead with distinctive developments, in order to ensure that Singapore does not lag behind in the face of the global competition among cities. URA exhibited some exciting plans for the City Centre in June this year. In particular, an exciting vision of the Downtown at Marina Bay was presented. The new Downtown is envisaged as a global business and financial hub with prime office spaces, complemented by a full range of residential and convention facilities, shops, eating establishments as well as a ring of arts, cultural and entertainment activities around Marina Bay.
29 The Downtown at Marina Bay is starting to come alive, with the completion of The Esplanade Theatres on the Bay and the Merlion Park. URA has also successfully sold two sites around the Bay. The One Raffles Quay project will meet the increasing demand for offices with larger floor plates. The second sale site developed by City Development is currently planned as a mixed residential and commercial development, to meet the increasing demand for city living.
30 The exciting potential of the Bay has not escaped activity organisers who are gravitating towards the Bayfront to hold their events there, even without permanent infrastructure. In July this year, Zoukout brought some 15,000 partygoers to the open area at the Marina Bayfront. I went to recce the place and saw for myself the lively party atmosphere, with partygoers enjoying themselves against the back-drop of our impressive city skyline.
31 I understand that the F1 boat race last month brought about 70,000 spectators to the Bay to enjoy the event. The Singapore Marathon to be held next month will bring runners along the promenade around Marina Bay and into Marina South before finishing in the Padang. I also hear that Mediaworks plans to screen outdoor movies at the Bayfront towards the end of this year. All these developments are very much welcomed.
Building Infrastructure at Downtown @ Marina Bay
32 Clearly, there is so much more that can happen in this area, when new developments come on stream and the area is made more accessible. URA is actively planning for the release of the site for the development of a Business and Financial Centre (BFC). The BFC has recently received positive feedback and encouraging support from investors, professionals and the public during the consultation on the City Centre exhibition in June. The development of the BFC will ensure Singapore stays competitive and keeps up with new developments in global and regional financial centres.
To prepare for the launch of the BFC, URA is working to put in place the necessary infrastructure, such as the Common Services Tunnel, and enhancement works to improve accessibility to the area. Two key projects that URA is studying in detail are the extension of the existing promenade from One Fullerton around Marina Bay to Marina Centre, and a new, low-level bridge for pedestrians and vehicles to connect Marina Centre to the Bayfront. These two projects will make the new Downtown a more accessible and more attractive place.
33 With the proposed waterfront promenade extension, visitors to Marina Bay will be able to stroll along the waterfront to the Marina City Park. Besides being able to enjoy a scenic view of the skyline, pavilions and kiosks along the promenade will provide additional amenities to these visitors.
34 The proposed new bridge will be the gateway connecting the cultural, hotel and entertainment uses in Marina Centre to the other parts of the Bay, both for pedestrians as well as drivers. Visitors will be able to walk from the Esplanade Theatres all the way to the Bayfront amidst tropical landscaping along the promenade. Short-term activity-generating uses and leisure activities will be introduced at the Bayfront.
35 The proposed bridge and the waterfront promenade will open up the Bayfront and add to the current life and vibrancy in and around the Bay. If designed to world-class standards, they can be the landmarks for the New Downtown as well as Singapore. URA is actively looking into making these new infrastructures a reality.
36 The Downtown at Marina Bay has the potential to bring so much vibrancy and life to our city. We, both in the public and private sectors, must seize this opportunity to develop it well.
If we succeed, it can make a significant difference to our urban cityscape and maintain our reputation as the "city that can".
37 Thank you.
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