Mr Kwek Leng Beng, Executive Chairman of City Developments Limited,

Mr Kwek Leng Joo, Managing Director of City Developments Limited

Dr Yu Lai Boon, Chief Investment Officer of Dubai World,

Mr Miki Naftali, President and CEO of Elad Group

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen

Introduction

1 Good morning. I am happy to be here this morning to witness the South Beach Project building agreement signing ceremony.

2 May I first begin by congratulating City Developments and its international partners Istithmar and Elad Group, for winning the tender for the site.

A prestigious site in a prime location

3 The South Beach site is one of the most prestigious sites that have been offered for sale through the Government Land Sales programme in recent years. The site occupies a prime and highly strategic location in Singapore downtown, surrounded by two distinctive districts – Marina Centre and the Civic District. The Marina Centre is Singapore’s key convention and hotel hub, while the Civic District is home to many of Singapore’s historic buildings and places.

Ensuring a high quality design

4 In order to build a distinctive city, the government will factor in both design and price in the tender for landmark developments in Singapore, such as this South Beach site. Given its strategic location, a two-envelope tender system was adopted to ensure that the development on this site met the high standard expected in design concept, quality of architecture, and sensitive adaptive use of the conservation buildings, besides providing attractive public spaces and effective pedestrian access.

5 And the proposal of the winning consortium exceeded our expectations. The design featured distinctive tower forms with sun-shading louvres, glass façade treatments and extensive sky gardens that will make a stunning and dramatic impact on the skyline profile of our city. Not only is it esthetically attractive, the concept proposal also provides an attractive and functional layout, that served to integrate the pedestrian flow with the surrounding areas in Seah Street and Purvis Street area. The sunken courtyards and tiered gardens lined with shops and cafes provided a seamless connection between the building forms of the past, the present and the future. The adoption of an environmentally friendly design approach and green technologies that are adapted to our tropical climate impressed us.

Rochor-Beach Road : A New Exciting Commercial Node

6. Indeed, this landmark development of South Beach will be a first glimpse into the exciting plans ahead for the Ophir Road/Rochor Road corridor. We intend to remake this corridor into an exciting commercial node that will complement the Marina Bay area. This area could be developed as a mixed-use corridor featuring offices, hotels and other supporting uses, connecting the established commercial node at Marina Centre to the Bugis area. The corridor will inject vibrancy and activities into this part of the city.

7. The government intends to build on the momentum by developing the land parcels along Beach Road and at the Ophir Road / Rochor Road corridor. The sizable land parcels along Ophir / Rochor corridor offer opportunities for the development of office buildings with large floor plate. URA will release more details of the plans for the Beach Road / Ophir Road corridor early next year.

Strong Foreign Participation

8. We look forward to partnering both local and foreign developers to materialize these exciting development plans ahead. In fact, there is increasing foreign interest in real estate investment in Singapore. The total year-to-date figure for foreign real estate investment in Singapore is estimated to have reached S$8.8 billion. This represents an increase of 66% over the 2006 full-year volume of about S$5.3 billion. In 2005, foreign investment was about S$4.1 billion and in 2004 the figure was only $0.8 billion.

9. This dramatic increase reflects the optimistic economic outlook and development potential in Singapore. In fact, the Urban Land Institute and Pricewaterhouse Coopers have ranked Singapore as the city with one of the best real estate investment prospects in Asia-Pacific for 2008, second only to Shanghai.

Conclusion

10. This South Beach project marks the first participation of Istithmar and Elad, two major international investors, in a Government land tender in Singapore. I am confident that this strategic partnership between the City Developments Ltd and its partners Istithmar and Elad Group will bring the wonderful plan of a world-class development at South Beach into reality. We look forward to seeing a development that will become a new landmark in Singapore and we wish City Development, Istithmar and Elad every success in its venture.

Thank you.

>>back to top