Miro @ Lincoln Road - Singapore - District 11

Miro @ Lincoln Road - Singapore - District 11

MIRO

The design of Miro is a creative mix of Barcelonian art, architecture and music. Adopting a clean and minimalistic fashion palette, the Mediterranean feel of Miro is invoked through simple designs with special attention to details.

Situated at No. 1 Lincoln Road, Miro is close to cosmopolitan Orchard Road as well as bustling Novena. Newton MRT station is also within walking distance.

At Miro, facilities for luxurious living are aplenty. The 1st storey has been zoned for outdoor activities such as the children’s playground and fitness area, while the 2nd storey deck is dedicated for reposeful spa living. The spa pool or entertainment terrace can also hold weekend dinners.

The concept of extending the living space is further evident in the landscaped terraces on the 3rd, 9th, 13th, 17th, 21st, 25th and 29th storeys. With pantries designed as an integral amenity in the garden pavilions, breakfast under the skies can be experienced on these sky terraces.

MIRO FACILITIES

1st Storey

Outdoor Recreational Facilities

- Entrance Forecourt
- Entrance Water Features
- Lounge Deck
- Children’s Playground
- Fitness Court
- Fern Garden
- Dog Run

2nd Storey

Outdoor Recreational Facilities

- Lap pool
- Hydrotherapy Sanctuary Spa Beds
- Hydrotherapy Sanctuary Massage Labyrinth
- Spa Sanctuary
- Dreamscape Sanctuary
- Spa Dining Court
- Entertainment Court
- Splash Pool
- Lawn
- North Deck Lounge
- South Deck Lounge
- East Deck Lounge

Indoor Recreational Facilities

- Steam Rooms

MIRO

Address = No. 1 Lincoln Road

Expected T.O.P = 2012

District 11 =

No of Towers and Units = 1 Tower, 85 units

Car Park Lots = 87 (inclusive of 2 handicap lots)

Tenure = FREEHOLD

Site Area = 40,204 sqft

Maintenance Cost = To be advised

Total Storey = 32 Storey

Type of units and sizes = 1 bedroom 990 sqft
= 2+1 bedroom 1302 sqft
= 3+1 bedroom 1615 / 1636sqft

Buy, Sell, Rent,invest, In Singapore

MINDY YONG

( +65 ) 91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com

Financial slowdown may ease construction costs

Financial slowdown may ease construction costs 
  
Projects like the Resorts World in Sentosa are going ahead as scheduled. The integrated resort is on track for its soft opening in early 2010 as most of the key contracts have already been awarded. 

The financial slowdown may actually spell good news for the construction industry.
Mr Simon Lee, executive director of the Singapore Contractors Association, said the downturn will most likely stabilise the cost of construction materials.

He noted how prices of materials had escalated tremendously in recent times and far exceeded their estimated cost during the tender stage of projects.

A spokesman for the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) also said the increase in construction costs will be moderated if prices of construction materials soften.

Ms Chua Chor Hoon, research senior director for DTZ Debenham Tie Leung (South-east Asia), said the slowdown in the property market will ease the bottlenecks and rising costs in the sector.

‘This is good as the frenetic pace experienced over the last two years is not sustainable.’

She added that it is likely that costs in the public construction industry will ease as projects get deferred or are aborted.

Rising construction costs can be traced back to early last year after Indonesia banned the export of construction sand and granite to Singapore.

The worldwide economic boom resulted in an increase in demand for other construction materials.

Manpower costs shot up as well due to the high number of projects but limited number of skilled workers.

As a result, many construction projects have been delayed.

The United World College said last month that its upcoming campus in Tampines would not be ready by 2010.

Last year, the Government announced the delay of $4.7 billion worth of public sector projects to ease pressure on construction demand. The delayed projects include a new hospital in Jurong and a complex that will house the Communicable Disease Centre.

But other projects, like Resorts World in Sentosa, are still going ahead as scheduled.

Ms Krist Boo, its vice-president for communications, said the integrated resort is on track for its soft opening in early 2010. ‘We are fortunate to have already awarded most of the major construction contracts for our resort,’ she said.

The majority of public construction projects are also expected to go ahead.

The BCA spokesman said it expects total public construction demand to reach between $10.5 billion and $13.5 billion this year as the Government is proceeding with essential infrastructure projects such as the Marina Coastal Expressway, MRT Downtown Line and Gardens by the Bay.

Source : Business Times - 13 Oct 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com ( email me )

Talk but where’s the action from G-7?

Talk but where’s the action from G-7? 

Group pledges to take ‘all necessary steps’ to stop crisis, but pessimism continues 

By Francis Chan 

Analysts are bracing themselves for more nervousness when markets open tomorrow, after an important meeting of the world’s most powerful economies threw up tough words but no action plan on how to deal with the financial crisis.
After meeting for more than three hours on Friday, the Group of Seven (G-7) would say only that the crisis ‘calls for urgent and exceptional action’.

It pledged to prevent the failure of key banks and ‘take all necessary steps to unfreeze credit and money markets’, but did not specify how it intended to do this.

‘All of us recognise that this is a serious global crisis and therefore requires a serious global response,’ United States President George W. Bush said after the G-7 meeting.

With stocks crashing crazily last week and a global recession looking more likely by the day, investors had been hoping for more action and less talk from the grouping, which consists of the US, Britain, Japan, Germany, France, Canada and Italy.

In particular, many had wanted the G-7 to adopt a British plan to guarantee lending between banks that will solve a key problem that is fuelling the market panic today.

Britain’s rescue plan, launched last week, involves recapitalising its banks and guaranteeing interbank lending to bring interest rates down and get credit markets functioning again.

‘Markets wanted to get a game plan from the G-7 and they haven’t got that,’ said Ms Sophia Drossos, a New York-based currency strategist at Morgan Stanley, in a Bloomberg report. ‘There might be disappointment.’

G-7 leaders met again last night with their counterparts from the larger Group of 20, which includes Russia and China, and Eurozone leaders have scheduled a meeting today in Paris.

But market experts The Sunday Times spoke to remained highly pessimistic on whether governments could deliver.

‘It just underscores how difficult things are when you have a whole bunch of people who have to produce a new global rescue policy that involves their own country’s taxpayers’ money,’ said CIMB-GK economist Song Seng Wun.

‘They all have different agendas. We knew that it would be tough to come up with a new plan, but for them to actually admit it, is just bad.’

OCBC Bank economist Selena Ling said: ‘Come Monday, markets will still be very jittery and choppy.’

International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard thinks things will get worse before they get better.

‘In a worst-case scenario, governments will need a few more weeks to take the correct measures and the markets could fall another 20per cent. Then, we’ll turn around,’ he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Still, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday that Europe would continue to push for a concrete solution. ‘There are two competing models. The American model, which no one wishes to draw inspiration from, and the British model. This is what everyone is talking about,’ a source close to the French presidency told Reuters.
Source : Straits Times - 13 Oct 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com ( email me )

World races to contain contagion

World races to contain contagion 

Eurozone leaders plan co-ordinated loan guarantees and fresh capital injections 
  
French President Sarkozy (right) has been meeting with EU counterparts like German Chancellor Angela Merkel to work on a united rescue plan for eurozone banks . — AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

PARIS: European leaders last night raced to lay out a rescue strategy for banks battered by the financial crisis.
At a summit of the 15 leaders of the countries which use the euro as a common currency in Paris, draft plans included guaranteeing loans between banks and pumping fresh capital into struggling institutions.

Leaders hope these loan guarantees will address the unwillingness of banks to lend to each other - the root of the credit crunch.

Draft comments at press time last night said that ‘governments remain committed to avoid any failure of systemically relevant institutions, through appropriate means including recapitalisation’.

European leaders stressed they will take taxpayers’ interests into consideration, and ‘ensure that existing shareholders and management bear due consequences of the intervention.’

While money would be lent, banks would be charged at commercial rates for the service.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, had said ahead of the meeting yesterday that he hoped to persuade his counterparts ‘to speak with once voice’.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said that European governments need ‘unprecedented’ cooperation to find a way out of the financial crisis.

The meeting in Paris was hastily arranged by Mr Sarkozy and came a day after a summit of the Group of Seven (G-7) rich nations in Washington, which offered no concrete action but promised to do whatever was needed to unfreeze credit markets.

Yesterday President Sarkozy first hosted British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and then his 14 colleagues from the single-currency bloc, in the Elysee Palace. He met German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier, on Saturday.

While Britain is not part of the eurozone, Mr Brown was invited because of plans to adopt an approach similar to the £50 billion (S$126 billion) bailout plan for British banks announced last week. That plan sees the government guaranteeing inter-bank lending and buying stakes in banks.

As markets enter a new trading week, the French Cabinet will hold a special session today to approve a Bill offering state guarantees and recapitalisation to banks in trouble.

Germany is also expected to unveil a bank bailout package.

British banks were in talks with the government and regulators yesterday to determine how much capital each needed from the £50 billion offered by the government last week.

Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported that today the four largest banks, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and Barclays, will ask for a combined £35 billion lifeline.

Coordination of actions is considered vital to contain the spreading crisis.

Capital markets are already seizing up in many parts of the world with share trading briefly or completely suspended in Russia, Iceland, Romania, Italy, Austria, Ukraine, Peru and Indonesia last week.

In Portugal, the government announced a ¥20 billion (S$40 billion) state guarantee for banks, while the Norwegian government and central bank introduced new measures to boost banks’ liquidity and ability to fund themselves, including plans to issue up to 350 billion kroner (S$82 billion) in new government bonds.

Closer to home, Australia and New Zealand gave a blanket guarantee to all bank deposits yesterday, following in the footsteps of Britain, Germany and Ireland.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said his government would guarantee Australia’s entire deposit base of A$600 billion (S$580 billion) to A$700 billion for three years, as well as wholesale bank funding. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced a similar guarantee scheme but gave no time frame.

In Hong Kong, Undersecretary for Financial Services Julia Leung said that the government may use all of its foreign reserves to stabilise its financial markets. ‘We’ll use all the ammunition if we have to,’ she told Hong Kong Commercial Broadcasting.

BLOOMBERG, REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BBC NEWS

Source : Business Times - 13 Oct 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com ( email me )

How to price in a recession if Wall St is still playing catch-up?

How to price in a recession if Wall St is still playing catch-up?

By R SIVANITHY

SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

HOW does one go about pricing in a recession? Or to be more specific, how should one price in an impending slowdown whose magnitude is completely unknown as the source is a global crisis that has shot confidence in stocks worldwide to bits?
And to top it off, how does one anticipate where stocks might head when Wall Street clearly is in its death throes but may not have bottomed yet?

One good starting point might be to look at the two recessions of the past 10 years and ask oneself, are present conditions better, the same, or worse than those two occasions?

The most recent was in 2003 during the Sars epidemic and the US invasion of Iraq, at which time the Straits Times Index sank to 1,200.

The previous episode was in 1998 during the regional crisis when, almost exactly 10 years ago, the STI bottomed at 800 amidst panic-selling of the baht, rupiah, ringgit and the local dollar.

Adding to the market’s problems at that time was a full-scale blowout involving Malaysian shares traded on Clob International when the Malaysian government declared Clob an illegal market and ordered the migration of all shares back to Malaysia.

If you accept that conditions are at least as bad as during Sars, then the STI dropping to the 1,200 region is possible which, if it occurs, represents 38 per cent further downside from Friday’s 1,948 closing.

The alternative, which is if you believe that carnage in the world’s banking system and a loss of faith in governments to prop markets up is worse than a loss of confidence in South-east Asian currencies, means that the index might even lose the 1,000 level.

Readers are best left to their own devices to decide which of these two admittedly extreme - but yet plausible - scenarios they prefer or even if they think that both are too outrageous to consider. A few pointers however, are in order.

First, charts and fundamentals are of virtually no use in times like these. Chartists last week believed firmly that the STI wouldn’t break below the 2,000 mark or that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be able to hold on to 9,000. Both those targets have now been consigned to the scrap heap.

Similarly, fundamental gauges like price/earnings and price/book offer little insight when only the numerator is visible and the denominator is a blind estimate that might have been based on spurious estimates in the first place.

Second, everyone has underestimated the magnitude of the risks involved. Just three weeks ago for example, analysts were calling a strong buy on China stock Ferrochina with target prices above $2 when the stock was at 64 cents.

No one it seems, realised that heavily-geared companies like Ferrochina might find it difficult to cope with the credit crunch and as a result, might face financial ruin. Ferrochina’s admission of its problems will surely lead to worries about how many other companies there are whose future is similarly threatened.

Third, and most important, Wall Street. As pointed out in Saturday’s column, the meltdown there is simply because US stocks are now playing catch-up with the rest of the world, having been artificially supported by implicit and explicit promises from officialdom that if necessary, a government bailout would be at hand.

This point has been repeatedly made throughout the past year in this column, and it is the abrupt removal now of this ‘bailout premium’ that is sending the US market crashing. The removal of this premium of course, comes because of a sudden, awful realisation that the size of the bailout needed is simply too big, certainly much more than the US$700 billion the US Treasury announced three weeks ago.

As stated on Saturday, a possible bottom for the US market might be a 50 per cent retracement from its all-time high, which would take the Dow Jones Industrial Average to about 7,100 versus Friday’s close of 8,450.

We wouldn’t however, put too much money into that prediction though.

To borrow an infamous phrase coined by the Bush administrations, the existence of too many ‘unknown unknowns’ suggests that a lengthy recession (latest estimates are about two years) has not been properly priced in yet. In which case the advice remains the same as it’s been for months now - sell into strength at every opportunity because there won’t be many of them.

 
Source : Business Times - 13 Oct 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com ( email me )

Singapore pledges support for SWF guidelines

Singapore pledges support for SWF guidelines

Framework will bring about greater transparency, dispel mistrust surrounding such funds
By LEE U-WEN

(SINGAPORE) Singapore has pledged its full support to a new voluntary framework that will ensure greater transparency for sovereign wealth funds (SWFs).
Released on Saturday by the five-month-old International Working Group of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IWG), the set of guidelines - called the Generally Accepted Principles and Practices (GAPP) - will help government-owned wealth funds and the countries that accept their investments operate on an even playing field.

The IWG, which represents SWFs with total assets worth an estimated US$2.3 trillion, said that the framework would bring about greater levels of public disclosure to dispel mistrust surrounding such funds, even as more of them are called on to help rescue ailing global markets.

The IWG made public the set of 24 voluntary principles in a 59-page report on its website, and also announced it had formed a committee to explore the creation of a permanent international sovereign wealth fund body.

Singapore is represented in the IWG by the Ministry of Finance, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and Temasek Holdings.

Singapore Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who attended the IWG ministerial meeting in Washington when the GAPP was presented, said that both GIC and Temasek already adhere to the principles and practices and would continue to do so in the future.

 
 
At a separate event yesterday, also in the US capital, GIC deputy chairman and executive director Tony Tan said that GIC would implement the framework appropriately ‘and where necessary consult the Singapore government in areas where they have the prerogative’.

‘It is mutually beneficial, if not essential, for developed and emerging countries to maintain an international regime that allows for the free flow of capital,’ said Dr Tan as he spoke on the topic, ‘The future shape of global finance’, at the annual meeting of the Institute of International Finance.

‘Restrictions on investments would hurt both investors as well as recipients who would have to pay a higher cost for capital. More worryingly, it could also be part of a more pernicious trend that threatens the fundamentals of global prosperity offered by globalisation itself,’ he said.

SWFs, estimated by the United Nations to control assets worth a total of US$5 trillion, have come under intense scrutiny in recent months. Many took large stakes in major financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch and UBS, which have been hit by the US sub-prime home loan crisis that erupted in financial markets in August last year.

Critics have argued that SWFs in general are too secretive, while others have alleged that they might be investing for political reasons rather than for purely economic and financial goals.

Mr Tharman said that together with a best-practice framework for SWFs, it is ‘equally important’ for OECD countries to develop principles to govern inward investment.

‘Investment recipient countries should maintain an open investment regime towards SWFs and not discriminate against them,’ he said.

 
Source : Business Times - 13 Oct 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com ( email me )

Aussie dollar slide hits S’porean companies

Aussie dollar slide hits S’porean companies

SingTel, CapitaLand, ComfortDelGro, Tat Hong in the list
By NISHA RAMCHANDANI

(SINGAPORE) The slide of the Australian dollar will hit Singapore companies with Aussie exposure, including Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, the biggest company on the Singapore Exchange.
Other companies with Australian dollar exposure include transport operator ComfortDelGro, Singapore Power, property company CapitaLand, crane operator Tat Hong and systems integrator CSE Global. One unit of the Australian currency traded at 98 Singapore cents by Asian close on Friday, compared with $1.35 on July 11 last year.

According to analyst Sachin Mittal of DBS Vickers, the magnitude of the impact for SingTel will depend on how prolonged the volatility will be. ‘It could be short term turmoil or long term,’ he pointed out.

Nonetheless, some impact will be felt. ‘With every 10 per cent decline in the Australian dollar, SingTel earnings are impacted by 2 per cent,’ he reckoned, highlighting that a fifth of SingTel’s earnings stem from SingTel Optus.

Similarly, a 10 per cent slide in the Australian dollar could see a 10 per cent drop in earnings for SP AusNet - of which Singapore Power owns a 51 per cent stake - and a 6 per cent fall for CitySpring Infrastructure Trust, according to a research note by DBS Vickers.

 
 
Tat Hong, which earns 36 per cent of net profit from Australia, will see earnings dip by 3.5 per cent as a result of a 10 per cent decline in the Australian dollar, while Allco Reits will be impacted negatively by 4.3 per cent.

‘As a high proportion of the group’s earnings are from outside of Singapore, the financial performance is sensitive to currency movements in the countries the group operates in,’ acknowledged a spokesperson from SingTel. About 31 per cent of the group’s earnings was derived from SingTel Optus in Q109.

Already, currency movements have hurt. SingTel Optus posted a 3 per cent growth in revenue to A$1.956 billion (S$1.897 billion) for Q109 ended June 30, while total operating revenue for SingTel rose 5.9 per cent to $3.78 billion. However, net profit for the SingTel group fell 5.3 per cent to $878 million, as a result of the stronger Singapore dollar against other regional currencies since SingTel - apart from Optus - also has associates in emerging regional markets such as India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

However, SingTel has benefited in the past from the strengthening of the Australian dollar. For Q408 ended March 31, the stronger Australian dollar lifted net profit by $12 million and operating revenue by $139 million. SingTel chalked up a net profit of $1.09 billion, 10.5 per cent higher than Q407, while group revenue rose 11 per cent to $3.76 billion.

Another major Singapore group that could be affected by its Australian exposure is transport operator ComfortDelGro.

‘In the case of ComfortDelGro and SingTel, it could be significant, but it really depends on the mix of other currencies they have,’ said Kim Eng analyst Gregory Yap.

ComfortDelGro’s Australian subsidiary ComfortDelGro Cabcharge was set up in 2005 as a joint venture between ComfortDelGro and financial services provider Cabcharge Australia. Australia contributes 7.2 per cent of total group revenue (as at end June 2008).

‘We do expect some translation losses on the net profits,’ said spokesperson Tammy Tan but added that the losses are not realised as profits are not remitted back to Singapore.

For Q2 ended 30 June, the transport operator had reported that net profit dipped 2.9 per cent to $56.8 million after taking into account an exceptional gain of $26.5 million, while revenue grew 5.8 per cent to $790.1 million on the back of strong performance from its operations in Australia and China.

Meanwhile, property company CapitaLand expects any impact to be slight. A spokesperson for CapitaLand said: ‘The recent exchange rate fluctuations are not expected to have any material impact on the profitability of the group’ as ‘operations in Australia and New Zealand comprised 6 per cent ($78m) of the group’s total EBIT for H108.’ EBIT refers to earnings before interest and tax.

And there are still those that remain bullish on their prospects in Australia, despite any losses they might see.

‘There will definitely be some impact but there’s still opportunity for us to grow in Australia,’ said Tan Mok Koon, CSE Global’s group managing director. Australia accounted for about $40 million - slightly less than 10 per cent - of the $405 million in revenue earned by the group last year.

Nonetheless, he remains optimistic that the mining industry in Australia offers plenty of potential for growth and hopes to beef up CSE Global’s presence in Western Australia and Queensland. Its operations are currently located in Sydney and Melbourne.

Source : Business Times - 13 Oct 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com ( email me )

S’pore banks in sound shape: MAS MD

S’pore banks in sound shape: MAS MD

By LEE U-WEN

(SINGAPORE) Financial institutions in Singapore are sound and operating normally, even in the wake of the ongoing global turmoil that has seen hundreds of billions of dollars lost in the mortgage and securities markets.
This assurance was made yesterday by the central bank as it made a concerted effort to calm consumers worried about the safety of their deposits, insurance plans and investments.

Speaking at a financial seminar yesterday, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) managing director Heng Swee Keat described banks here as being ’sound and operating normally’.

He cited a number of reasons for this optimism. First, Singapore has no sub-prime mortgages that originated here, which means that banks and insurance companies have limited exposures to such assets or to the banks that have failed.

Second, MAS has been conservative in its approach to how it supervises financial institutions. ‘Their assets must exceed liabilities by a good margin, and we require them to hold sufficient capital. Financial institutions here, both local and foreign, have invested resources in risk management,’ said Mr Heng.

Lastly, unlike banks elsewhere that face liquidity problems, depositors and investors here maintain a high level of confidence in Singapore’s banks, especially as the MAS is also very strict about the spreading of rumours.

 
Source : Business Times - 13 Oct 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com ( email me )

G-7’s action plan faces market verdict

G-7’s action plan faces market verdict

All eyes will be on bourses today to see whether they will stabilise or continue downward spiral
By ANTHONY ROWLEY
IN WASHINGTON

STOCK markets around the world will today deliver their verdict on the ‘action plan’ announced in Washington by G-7 finance ministers to stabilise global financial markets.
 
Mr Strauss-Kahn: Credit squeeze is spreading to emerging market economies, forcing them to turn to the IMF for emergency financing 
The plan drew sharply different reactions over the weekend as to whether it can succeed in preventing a complete market meltdown. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), claimed the plan would ‘unfreeze financial markets and restore funding’.

Meanwhile, the IMF chief confirmed that the credit squeeze is spreading to emerging market economies, forcing them to turn to the IMF for emergency balance of payments financing. This came after the Fund’s International Monetary and Finance Committee (IMFC) warned of possible ’spillover effects’ on emerging economies from the financial crisis.

All eyes will be on stock markets today to see whether they show signs of stabilising after the G-7’s confidence-boosting actions, or continue their downward spiral.

The emergency meeting of leaders of 27 European countries in Paris last night could also have a critical impact on market sentiment. A draft statement quoted by AFP said European leaders had pledged to guarantee interbank lending by issuing government securities.

Mario Draghi, chairman of the Financial Stability Forum, played down expectations of any market turnaround. The current turmoil is ‘rooted in the psychology of investors all over the world and you are not going to see that change in a day’, he warned.

The vice-chairman of the AIG group and former Bank of Israel governor, Jacob Frenkel, called the action plan ‘too amorphous’ to have any strong impact on market sentiment. The G-7 plan ‘did not specify any dates’ for its proposed policy actions, he said in a speech to the Institute of International Finance (IIF). ‘We need to be precise and to get to the details,’ he added.

Others were more upbeat.

‘I think what the G-7 said was right on the mark and by demonstrating the collective effort, it enables ministers to go back and do things in their own countries,’ the managing director of Goldman Sachs International in New York, Robert Hormats, said.

Meanwhile, fears are growing that even prominent emerging market economies such as those of Pakistan, Argentina and Ukraine could soon be in need of emergency funding from the IMF as a result of the spreading credit crisis.

Private credit lines and commercial bank lending to certain emerging markets have been cut or restricted, resulting in funding problems for these countries, said Mr Strauss-Kahn.

‘It is obvious that with the risk of repatriation of (private) capital more emerging markets are likely to turn to the IMF for emergency support,’ he added.

He declined to specify the number or size of countries seeking such support but he pledged IMF backing for any country in need. The IMF has activated emergency credit lines and is working on the provision of new ‘liquidity instruments’ to help countries in need, he revealed, adding that the IMF has ample resources to meet such calls.

The IMFC said at the weekend that ‘many emerging market economies which have implemented sound policies in recent years’ may experience spillover effects from the financial crisis. The global financial environment, including elevated food and fuel prices, adds to the challenges for emerging markets and developing countries to preserve macroeconomic stability, sustain growth and make progress on poverty reduction.

The IMFC, which is made up of finance ministers and central bank governors from 24 advanced and emerging market economies, endorsed the action plan adopted by G-7 finance ministers to deal with the financial crisis. ‘The committee recognises the depth and systemic nature of the crisis and calls for exceptional vigilance, coordination and readiness to take bold action,’ the communique said.

 
Source : Business Times - 13 Oct 2008

Singapore Property - Buy, Sell, Rent, Invest

Mindy Yong

(+65)91002985

mindy@mindyyong.com ( email me )