China Firm Is Top Bidder For HDB's Bishan Plot

Source : The Straits Times, Feb 21, 2008

THE results of the most recent tender for a Bishan plot illustrates how foreign players are increasingly making inroads into privately developed public housing here.

China's Qingdao Construction Group Corporation emerged as the top contender for a 1.5ha plot in Bishan Street 24 with a bid of $135.9 million, almost $20 million more than the next bidder.

The Housing Board will evaluate the tender, which closed on Tuesday. It is expected to announce the winning bid in the next two weeks.

Qingdao, which has been building in Singapore for the past nine years, out-bid home-grown Sim Lian Land and a local-foreign joint venture comprising Hoi Hup Realty and Malaysia's Sunway Concrete Products.

Sim Lian's bid of $116 million was the second highest.

Blocks in the Bishan development can go up to about 50 storeys. Qingdao said on Tuesday it will build more than 400 flats on the land.

Qingdao's bid was the equivalent of $237 per sq ft (psf) per plot ratio. ERA Singapore assistant vice-president Eugene Lim estimates the break-even cost at $400 psf, making the selling price of the flats at $440 to $480 psf.

The site is the fourth put up for tender under the HDB's Design, Build and Sell Scheme. This basically gives private developers the freedom to design, build and price flats as long as they work within the general rules of public housing. For example, flats must be easy to maintain and cannot be sold to families earning more than $8,000 a month.

About 1,500 more such flats are being planned for Toa Payoh, Simei and Bedok.

Qingdao, which has more than 20 branches in countries outside China, has been building mainly HDB flats on contract, so the Bishan tender marks its first foray into the local real estate industry as a developer.