Category Archives: Overseas Property

Hong Kong’s 50-yr rule has marred skyline

COLLECTIVE property sales opponents like Mr Dennis Butler (’En bloc sales: Adopt HK’s 50-year limit’, last Saturday) and Mr Augustine Cheah (’The difference’, last Saturday) have quickly latched on to Ms Tan Hui Yee’s piece, ‘En bloc debate, HK style’ (Aug 10) and hailed it as a ‘well-argued commentary’.

Few people in Singapore know that all Hong Kong properties are on a 50-year leasehold term, beginning from the handover date July 1, 1998, except the land on which St John’s Cathedral stands in Central, which is the only freehold land in Hong Kong.

That may be one reason why the Hong Kong administration proposed a condition to lower the 90 per cent consent threshold to 80 per cent – that the building be at least 50 years old. For example, if a 30-year-old building was demolished after a collective sale, the remaining lease on the land would be below 20 years.

From Hong Kong’s international airport, you take a ride through the scenic beauty of the New Territories. Then you pass through downtown Kowloon Continue reading

Frasers opens serviced suites in Delhi

FRASERS Hospitality has announced its first serviced apartments in India’s capital, as it moves to entrench itself further in a market that it sees as having potential topped only by China.

The nine-storey, 90-unit Frasers Suites is close to central New Delhi as well as Noida, an industrial-residential town across the Uttar Pradesh state border. It is scheduled to open in October next year, in time for the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

Frasers’ involvement in the New Delhi property follows its debut in the Indian market last November with the announcement of three properties in Bangalore. With the latest announcement, the total number of Fraser-managed residences to be available in India within three years will be 585. Fraser Suites New Delhi is being developed by India’s IFCI Infrastructure Development.

The deal with IFCI underscores the Singapore company’s bullish approach to the Indian market, where the government expects the economy Continue reading