Plans also to grow serviced apartment arm, double Raffles City developments
PROPERTY giant CapitaLand is gearing up to build more of its Raffles City developments, affordable homes, shopping malls and serviced apartments in China over the next five years.
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Mr Liew (left) and Mr Lim opening CapitaLand’s ’15 years in China’ exhibition at Raffles City Singapore yesterday. — PHOTO: CAPITALAND
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It had earlier announced its target of expanding China’s share of its total business from the current 28 per cent to between 35 per cent and 45 per cent within the next three to five years.
And this, said the president and chief executive of CapitaLand group Liew Mun Leong yesterday, includes building a lot more affordable homes rather than high-end housing, to meet the housing needs of ordinary people.
China’s housing demand is no small matter: The country needs 20 million homes every year, said Mr Liew.
CapitaLand, which has so far built 35,000 homes in China, will continue to build about 2,000 to 3,000 homes a year in the country, said the deputy chairman of CapitaLand China executive committee, Mr Lim Ming Yan.
That number goes up to as many as 5,000 homes a year, if its strategic partnerships are included, he said.
Mr Liew also wants to have a total of 10 Raffles City developments in China in five years’ time, up from the current five.
No. 6 is already ‘cooking’, he told The Straits Times yesterday at the opening ceremony of CapitaLand’s ‘15 years in China’ exhibition at Raffles City Singapore.
He said he could not disclose the location as negotiations are ongoing.
The group launched its fifth Raffles City project in China – in Ningbo – in June this year.
It also has completed Raffles Cities in Shanghai and Beijing, and ongoing projects in Chengdu and Hangzhou.
Every Raffles City represents an investment of around $1 billion, and consists of a mall, offices and either a hotel or serviced apartments, Mr Liew said.
CapitaLand’s serviced apartment arm Ascott will also grow in China – the place to be for the ‘the depth and width of the market’, said Mr Liew.
‘China has grown an average of 10 per cent per annum for the past 30 years and is forecast to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy by 2020,’ he said yesterday.
‘China is our most successful overseas market and will continue to grow given the demographics, massive urbanisation programme and economic growth.’
CapitaLand entered China in 1994 and has become one of the top foreign developers there. It now has more than 106 projects in more than 40 cities.
About half of its employees are in China, and many of them are Chinese nationals.
Its staff are so well-trained that many of them have been poached, Mr Liew told the audience gathered at the opening ceremony.
Meanwhile, CapitaLand reportedly said that there had been good investor response to the planned US$2 billion (S$2.8 billion) IPO of its shopping mall unit CapitaMalls Asia.
Source : Straits Times – 14 Nov 2009
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