Pollux Habibie International, the company of Indonesia’s former president BJ Habibie, is set to build luxury apartments in Batam in an attempt to woo foreign buyers, especially Singaporeans, reported The Jakarta Post.
Called Meisterstadt, the US$1 billion (S$1.4 billion) project will be developed on a nine-hectare site, and will consist of 11 towers of apartments, hotel rooms, offices and a hospital.
Ilham Akbar Habibie, son of President Habibie and commissioner of Pollux Habibie International, revealed that the mega project will be built in four stages, with works set to begin in the middle of this year.
“Initially, the plan to construct a hospital in the superblock was in the last will and testament of my mum (the late Ainun Habibie). It will be implemented in the third stage of this superblock’s construction,” he said during the project’s launch on Saturday (30 Jan).
Ilham noted that the property market in Batam is promising due to its close proximity to Singapore. He hopes that Singaporeans will be the main buyers of the apartments.
“Singapore now has five million residents and it has continued to grow. We hope that we can benefit the country’s population, particularly in the property sector,” he said.
“It happened in Hong Kong in the 1950s, during which the region’s population had flown to several provinces of the Chinese mainland near Hong Kong. We’ve now seen a similar situation in Guangdong, in which industries and businesses from Hong Kong have flown to the city.
“Such an effect will happen between Singapore and Batam.”
The developer hopes to sell a third of the apartments to foreigners while the rest will be marketed to local buyers.
In fact, 1,575 apartments in two of the towers have already been booked by potential buyers holding VVIP pass cards during the launch. A total of 1,874 VVIP pass cards were released for the event.
To be built during the first stage of construction, the apartments come in three different sizes – 24.82 sqm, 42.51 sqm and 51.59 sqm. Unit prices start from Rp 400 million (S$41,618).
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