Concerns over demand and supply of HDB flats to be raised in Parliament

Concerns over demand and supply of HDB flats to be raised in Parliament

By Lin Jiamei

SINGAPORE: Concerns over the property market will be one of the main topics to be discussed in Parliament next week.

MP for Aljunied GRC Cynthia Phua will be asking the Minister for National Development about the projected supply and demand of HDB flats over the next five years while MP for Marine Parade GRC, Dr Muhammad Faishal wants to know about the waiting time for new couples applying for HDB flats.

MPs are also planning to ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs for his assessment of the recently concluded APEC meetings.

Concerns over new immigrants will also be discussed.

Opposition MP Chiam See Tong will be asking the Deputy Prime Minister on the number of foreigners who have successfully applied for permanent residency in Singapore.

Parliament is also expected to introduce changes to the Moneylenders Act to enhance penalties for loansharks.

Parliament will sit at 1.30 pm on Monday. - 938LIVE/vm

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 20 November 2009

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Entrepreneurs need to better manage company finances, communication

Entrepreneurs need to better manage company finances, communication

By Jonathan Peeris

SINGAPORE: Experts at an entrepreneurship conference in Singapore said at least 40 per cent of American small businesses fail because they overlooked three vital areas.

These are managing company finances, communicating with employees, and listening to customers.

Motivational speaker Don Hutson said to succeed, entrepreneurs must identify talent among their staff and empower them.

He said entrepreneurs must also understand their customers’ needs rather than simply promoting a product or service.

He said: “I think if ‘listen to your customers’ is a good premise, I’d say listen to them better and more than ever today.

“Our marketplace is changing, I think the consumer and the people we are doing business with are getting smarter, competition is getting keener, the bar of excellence is going up on every single one of us.

“And in light of that, we need to work harder at this process of communicating with all the key constituencies that have a factor in our own success.” - 938LIVE/vm

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 20 November 2009

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Private bankers eye China’s millionaires

Private bankers eye China’s millionaires

BEIJING: The number of US-dollar millionaires in China is expected to nearly double in five years, luring private bankers eager to help them invest an expected combined wealth of more than US$7.6 trillion (S$10.6 trillion) by 2013, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said yesterday.

Global wealth declined last year for the first time since 2001, the consultancy said, but the number of Chinese individuals with household financial wealth of more than US$1 million each may grow to 788,000 by 2013 from 417,000 last year.

‘We believe that China’s wealth market offers an attractive window of opportunity for banks,’ Mr Frankie Leung, a BCG partner in Hong Kong, told reporters in Beijing.

‘How banks should act to capture the opportunities and establish competitive positions would be a key strategic issue to explore.’

Foreign banks, including HSBC Holdings, Citigroup and Bank of East Asia, have all started private banking businesses in China, competing for affluent clients with local rivals such as Bank of China.

According to the consultancy’s definition, financial wealth includes cash, equities and bonds, but excludes real estate and privately owned enterprises.

Globally, total assets of rich individuals declined by 11.7 per cent to US$92.4 trillion last year due to the global financial crisis, the first drop since 2001, but BCG expects growth to resume over the next few years.

‘It will take roughly five years for the wealth pools to recover from the crisis and to reach a level that is comparable to wealth growth in 2007,’ said Mr Holger Michaelis, a partner and managing director of the firm.

He added that the financial crisis has made rich people abandon complex products in favour of simple, less risky investments to protect, rather than grow their wealth.

REUTERS

Source : Striats Times - 20 November 2009

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Google, LTA launch travel planning service

Google, LTA launch travel planning service

By SAMUEL EE

GOOGLE Maps’ public transit and traffic features were unveiled in Singapore yesterday - the first time the online mapping giant has launched both features together in any country.

A new Google site - maps.google.com.sg - was created for the free service, which can also be accessed from mobile devices.

Google collaborated with the Land Transport Authority, which provided key transit and traffic information such as live traffic feeds and public bus and MRT routes and schedules.

According to Google Southeast Asia’s head of communications Dickson Seow, the joint effort began in April and the fast implementation was due to the quality of LTA data.

‘Singapore is a good case study to launch features for commuters,’ Mr Seow said. ‘The transit system is highly efficient and integrated.’

Users of the Google service can ‘get directions’ in three ways - by car, by public transport or walking. There is also a ‘traffic’ to reveal the degree of congestion, ranging from slow to fast.

Mr Seow said that by making both features - public transit and traffic - available, people can better plan their journey by choosing the faster mode.

For example, if a particular route by car shows heavy traffic on the roads, they can opt to take the bus or train instead.

There are various online map platforms in Singapore that offer public transit or traffic features, but no other that offers both.

In 2007, the US was the first country to make use of Google’s traffic and transit features.

Since then, the transit feature has been launched in 400 cities, but only seven countries - including Singapore - have access to the traffic feature.

To set up the service in Singapore, Google invested in engineering resources that included bringing over its London-based geo-spatial technologist to work on the project. Mr Seow declined to say how much it cost, though he added that there was ‘no charge to LTA’.

According to LTA, Singapore has a daily public transport patronage of six million, travelling by bus, taxi and train, and there more than 870,000 other vehicles on the roads.

Source : Business Times - 20 November 2009

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Slide in prime office rents levelling off

Slide in prime office rents levelling off

In 1st 6 weeks of Q4, monthly office rents in Shenton fell 0.8%

By EMILYN YAP

FALLS in commercial rents in the Shenton, City Hall and Orchard areas are levelling off, going by mid-fourth quarter figures from Cushman & Wakefield.

Looking up: According to URA last month, take-up of office space turned positive in Q3 after staying negative for three consecutive quarters

The property consultancy found that in the first six weeks of Q4, monthly prime office rents in the Shenton market fell just 0.8 per cent to $5.99 per sq ft (psf) from $6.04 psf in Q3. This decline is much smaller than with the 10 per cent plunge between Q2 and Q3.

Rents held up relatively well even though the Shenton market had a double-digit vacancy rate as new space from buildings such as Mapletree Anson and 71 Robinson came onstream.

There is ‘landlord reluctance to lower rents amid signs of improving office space absorption’, Cushman & Wakefield said.

According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority last month, take-up of office space turned positive in Q3 after staying negative for three consecutive quarters.

In the City Hall area, monthly prime office rents are also flattening - they dipped just 0.4 per cent to $6.77 psf from $6.80 psf in Q3. This was a big improvement from the 5.4 per cent drop between Q2 and Q3.

Over at Orchard, prime office rents remained relatively stable at $6.89 psf, down marginally from $6.90 psf in Q3. Rents in this market fell 6.3 per cent between Q2 and Q3.

Both the City Hall and Orchard markets have low single-digit office vacancy rates. Cushman & Wakefield research director Ang Choon Beng said lease renewal in these areas has been fairly stable. Also, there is a relative lack of new space, unlike in the Shenton and Raffles Place markets.

Office rents in Raffles Place have yet to flatten out like those in the Shenton, City Hall and Orchard areas. Monthly Raffles Place Grade A rents fell 3.5 per cent to $7.85 psf, from $8.13 psf in Q3. Monthly prime rents there also dropped 2.6 per cent to $7.60 psf, from $7.80 psf in Q3.

Nevertheless, commercial landlords in Raffles Place can take comfort from the fact that the rental declines are smaller than those between Q2 and Q3.

Mr Ang expects prime rents to ‘remain soft’ for the rest of this year and the first half of 2010. ‘We think the influx of 2.2 million sq ft of new prime office space in 2010 needs to be well absorbed before we can see a bottoming of prime office rents,’ he said.

In a separate report, Jones Lang LaSalle said: ‘In markets with a large supply overhang, such as Singapore, there is likely to be continued upward pressure on incentives as owners seek to secure tenants.’

Source : Business Times - 20 November 2009

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Call to build up capabilities in design sector

Call to build up capabilities in design sector

By FELDA CHAY

THE design sector contributed about $3.4 billion to Singapore’s GDP last year. And ‘going forward, we can do better’, Acting Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew said yesterday at the President’s Design Award ceremony.

Mr Lui: Establish S’pore as marketplace of ideas to draw the best talents
‘To develop world-class design solutions, we need to continue to build capabilities in the sector,’ Mr Lui said. ‘This will also help enterprises diversify into new growth sectors such as lifestyle, entertainment, health, urban and green solutions.

‘To achieve this, we have to focus on design learning - and we have to establish Singapore as the marketplace of ideas to draw the best creative talents from around the world.’

Mr Lui said the Design for Enterprises programme, a $12 million joint initiative between the DesignSingapore Council (DSG) - an offshoot of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts - International Enterprise (IE) Singapore and Spring Singapore to help SMEs use design for business gain, has ‘received interest’ from more than 300 SMEs since its launch last November.

On top of that, more than 200 design agencies have showcased their portfolios on the DSG website.

At yesterday’s ceremony, the President’s Design Award - the highest local design accolade - was presented to four outstanding designers and seven iconic projects.

Atelier Ikebuchi Singapore director Koichiro Ikebuchi was one of the four to receive a Designer of the Year award from President SR Nathan. Chris Lee, founder and creative director of Asylum Creative Singapore; Look Boon Gee, managing director of LOOK Architects Singapore; and Tham Khai Meng, worldwide creative director of Ogilvy & Mather, New York, made up the rest of the winners.

President Nathan also presented seven Design of the Year awards to projects such as the Genexis Theatre at Fusionopolis and Republic Polytechnic and the X-halo Breath Thermometer, a thermometer that helps manage asthma before the onset of acute symptoms.

In May this year, the government announced phase two of the DesignSingapore Initiative (DSG-II) - a blueprint of fresh strategies to grow Singapore’s design sector over the next five years. Under this, the DesignSingapore (DSG) Council pumped in $55 million to support, among other things, the setting-up of a National Design Centre and to boost design learning and education.

The new target is for the sector to contribute $5 billion to GDP by 2015.

Source : Business Times - 20 November 2009

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Senoko to start deferred project

Senoko to start deferred project

Redevelopment of oil-fired plants to be completed in 2012

By RONNIE LIM

(SINGAPORE) Singapore’s largest generating company, Senoko Power, will start work on its deferred $750 million re-powering project in January, outgoing president and CEO Roy Adair said yesterday.

Mr Adair: Returns to Australia after six years at Senoko
The move follows a recovery in electricity demand since mid-year when the economy started turning around, and the government’s takeover of the delayed $1-1.5 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project from which Senoko intends to obtain gas to fuel the re-powering project.

Next on the cards for the genco - in the longer term - will be spot trading of LNG here, Mr Adair’s successor Brendan Wauters told BT.

Senoko - now owned by a French-Japanese consortium of LNG players - is discussing this with LNG terminal developer Singapore LNG Corporation, Mr Wauters said.

In a farewell interview, Mr Adair - who leaves Senoko this week after six years - said his return to Australia, where he intends to be involved with the power and environment industry, was something he had planned since March and was not, contrary to market speculation, anything hasty.

He said that while Senoko had deferred the re-powering project - which was supposed to start in April - it had continued with planning, even as monthly electricity demand plunged as much as 5-8 per cent in the first half.

The project involves re-developing of three 30-year-old oil-fired plants of 250 megawatts each into two, more efficient, combined cycle gas turbines of 430 MW each, and will make Senoko - already 97 per cent gas-fuelled - into one of the most environmentally friendly players here.

Senoko, which now buys about 230 million standard cubic ft of piped Malaysian and Indonesian gas daily, will need another 60 million once the re-powering project is completed in mid-2012.

To meet this requirement, Mr Wauters said Senoko has been in discussions with BG Group, the LNG aggregator, about securing long-term base supply. The genco is also talking to Singapore LNG Corporation, the terminal developer, about making additional LNG spot purchases for its own needs, and possibly for spot trading down the road.

The latter move is no surprise, given the Lion Power consortium - which bought Senoko for $4 billion in September last year - comprises consortium leaders Marubeni Corp and France’s GDF-Suez, both of which are big LNG buyers and traders. Its other members, like Kansai Electric and Kyushu Electric, are LNG consumers.

Mr Adair said Senoko, which currently has a 28-29 per cent share of the electricity market here, ‘doesn’t expect a material drop in this during the re-powering’.

Mr Wauters said it is still early days on whether Senoko - the only station in the north - will bid for the new Lorong Halus power station site the government is offering in the north-east. At present, there is more than enough generating capacity to meet demand, he said.

Source : Business Times - 20 November 2009

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Corporate governance code to be reviewed

Corporate governance code to be reviewed

Independence of directors at banks and insurers will also be scrutinised

By JAMIE LEE

(SINGAPORE) A council will be set up to review the Code of Corporate Governance, create guidelines for board committees and raise training opportunities for directors, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) managing director Heng Swee Keat said yesterday.

To determine the independence of directors at locally incorporated banks and insurers, MAS may also require consideration of their directorship tenure as part of a separate review by the central bank.

This is because more stringent standards are demanded from these financial institutions compared to other listed companies, Mr Heng said.

The review of the code for listed companies - last done in 2005 - will be carried out by a new corporate governance council.

The council will comprise members from the private and public sectors, whose names will be revealed early next year.

Unlike the last council, which went through the code and set accounting standards as well as better disclosure practices, this council will focus on corporate governance matters.

‘Among the council’s roles will be the identification of opportunities for continuing professional development of directors and the development of practical guidance for board committees,’ Mr Heng said at the Asian investors’ corporate governance conference organised by the Securities Investors Association (Singapore), or SIAS.

The MAS review of corporate governance regulations for banks and insurers - which are mandatory in contrast to voluntary compliance with the code - will also look at how the ‘independence’ of a director is defined.

‘MAS will review the need to further tighten the definition of independence by requiring the nominating committee to consider the length of service on the board as an additional criterion in determining the independence of a director,’ Mr Heng said.

DBS Group has nine independent directors, including Peter Seah who has just been appointed and others who have served for as long as six years. United Overseas Bank has six independent directors who have been with the bank for between one year and nine years. And OCBC Bank has seven independent directors who have stayed for between one year and 11 years.

The review of the directors’ independence comes as MAS looks at the effectiveness of risk management at the board level of such financial institutions, as well as studying their remuneration policies.

‘We support the idea of aligning compensation with appropriate risk-taking,’ said Mr Heng, referring to principles published by the International Financial Stability Board, which called for sound compensation practices that will reduce incentives for excessive risk-taking.

Market watchers said yesterday the review is timely, with Mak Yuen Teen, co-director of the Corporate Governance and Financial Reporting Centre at NUS Business School, calling for a guideline on the maximum number of directorships that can be held.

Some who spoke about the review and during the panel discussions said the greater concern was to ensure companies followed such guidelines.

‘Asian markets seem to be very good at coming up with rules, but you need to enforce them,’ Christopher Leahy, managing director of Kroll Associates, said during a panel discussion.

‘(The code) cannot replace human failure,’ said SIAS president David Gerald, who urged companies to exercise their ‘corporate will’ and follow any new recommendations.

Others, such as former Singapore Institute of Directors chairman Chew Heng Ching, cautioned against having more rules, saying over-regulation may not be a solution.

Source : Business Times - 20 November 2009

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No easy ride, but MTI bets on 3-5% growth for 2010

No easy ride, but MTI bets on 3-5% growth for 2010

Forecast is cautious but realistic and assumes a sluggish recovery in the US

By ANNA TEO

(SINGAPORE) The economy is out of the woods, but the recovery won’t be spectacular or even smooth sailing, says the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Unveiling what it calls a cautious but realistic forecast of 3-5 per cent GDP pace for 2010, MTI reckons that growth in the first half of the year could be ‘fairly strong’ but sees a rather ‘more uncertain’ outlook for the second half. Still, barring a double dip in the United States, ‘we do not expect a return to recessionary conditions in the second half’, says MTI permanent secretary Ravi Menon.

And, given sluggish growth in the major economies, neither does MTI expect a strong rebound to pre-crisis levels of growth anytime soon.

The GDP figures released yesterday confirm the end of recession in Singapore in Q3 - which saw the second consecutive quarter of sequential expansion, and the first positive year-on-year growth in four quarters. The Q3 numbers - 14.2 per cent q-o-q and 0.6 per cent y-o-y - have been revised down slightly from the flash figures put out six weeks ago.

While the market consensus is a little more upbeat, the official forecast sees the economy shrinking by between 2 and 2.5 per cent in 2009 - which implies a negative Q4 in sequential terms after two robust quarters. But this does not necessarily spell a return to recessionary conditions, said Mr Menon.

The pullback into the red must be seen in the context of double-digit sequential growth in the preceding two quarters, he pointed out. The surges in Q2 and Q3 reflected ‘aggressive restocking’ that is not expected to continue, and also came largely from the biomedical sector, he said.

In fact, excluding the biomedical sector, ‘the economy is expected to grow modestly in sequential terms in the upper end of our estimate’, he added.

The key economy to watch is the US, Mr Menon made clear. MTI’s base scenario for Singapore sees sluggish growth in America, but not recession.

But if the US goes into a double dip slump next year, triggered by another round of financial shocks or by further job market woes, ‘then all bets are off for the second half’ and Singapore would be hard put to achieve even the cautious 3-5 per cent growth forecast in 2010, he said.

‘We do not think it’s likely to happen,’ said Mr Menon of the worst-case scenario for the US.

Unemployment in America, which hit a 26-year high of 10.2 per cent in October, will likely remain weak but is not expected to worsen. And fiscal stimulus still in the pipeline will continue to support private demand, he said.

Indeed, there may well be upside surprises to MTI’s conservative view on the US outlook, he said, citing the chance, for instance, that the major economies may roll out further stimulus measures.

But ‘we have a bit more sight, (more) visibility, of the first half’ for Singapore, he said. ‘We think the current momentum should carry us . . . through the first few months into 2010 on pretty strong growth.’

In Q3, recovery here broadened beyond pharmaceuticals to electronics and the services. Next year, trade-related services should also get a boost with exports and imports flowing again - Singapore’s total trade is forecast to turn around and grow between 7 and 9 per cent in 2010, on higher oil prices and on improved global demand.

Meanwhile, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has also jacked up significantly its inflation forecast for 2010 to 2.5-3.5 per cent, from 1-2 per cent, on the revised annual values of HDB flats effective in January. But it sees no change in core inflation trends.

MAS also reiterated that it is tracking closely price trends in the property market. ‘I’m not sure I’ll characterise it as a bubble,’ said MAS deputy managing director Ong Chong Tee when pressed on whether there is a risk of ‘asset bubbles’ here. ‘I think it’s unclear how much of the (price) increases reflect the underlying improvement in economic sentiment, how much of it is speculative.’

Economists expect the official GDP forecast for 2010 to be revised up eventually - ’significantly over time’, said one - and for the MAS to return to a policy of ‘modest and gradual currency appreciation’ in April. The more bullish forecasts see the economy chalking up 6.5 per cent growth next year.

Source : Business Times - 20 November 2009

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