Raffles City Goes To Other Cities

Source : TODAY, Thursday, October 4, 2007

CapitaLand to build 8 more properties over the next 5 years


















CAPITALAND will capitalise on its core strengths in property development to grow the Raffles City branding, with at least eight more developments sprouting up worldwide over the next five years, said CEO and president of the CapitaLand Group Liew Mun Leong.

Speaking to reporters a day after Raffles City Singapore celebrated its 21st anniversary on Tuesday, Mr Liew said CapitaLand’s ability to build and manage successful integrated mixeddevelopments with retail, office and hotel components, will give it an edge.

While many developers are able to build malls, not many share CapitaLand’s ability to fill them with suitable tenant-mixes to sustain growth, he said.

Besides Raffles City Singapore, there is a Raffles City Shanghai in China. Under construction are three similar projects with the Raffles City name in Beijing, Chengdu and Bahrain, due to be completed over the next two years. CapitaLand aims to add five more Raffles City developments in the next five years, and more if there are opportunities to do so.

“We have many cities now approaching us to have a Raffles City built in their city,” said Mr Liew. “If Singapore with a population of about 4.5 million can have one Raffles City, there are many more such cities in a country like China.”

Mr Liew said among the interested gateway cities in emerging markets such as Russia, India, the Gulf Cooperation Council region, and Vietnam, China is most likely to have two or three more such integrated developments in the near future.

Developed economies like Japan have also expressed interest in a Raffles City development, but Mr Liew said the challenge is finding a site big enough in “a mature, congested city”.

CapitaLand may also inject Raffles City developments into a specially-created Raffles City real estate investment trust (Reits) when the developments are stable and delivering good yields. The Singapore-based developer reaffirmed its aim to manage 10 Reits eventually, possibly within “a relatively short time”.