News At A Glance

Prices are set to rise for another 10 years in what is already the world’s priciest property market, Hong Kong, as the city’s housing supply will not be able to keep up with the new population that is pouring in from the Greater Bay Area. This is according to UBS Group AG. UBS’ analysis based on demographics and non-local demand has led the Swiss bank to estimate Hong Kong’s annual housing demand to be 60,000 units over the coming decade, well above the government’s long-term supply target of 45,000 units per year. It is also likely that Hong Kong will see fewer private homes as the governm...

Over at MBS, new developments being planned for include a state-of-the-art 15,000-seat arena, a luxury hotel tower and additional exhibition space. The hotel tower will feature around 1,000 all-suite rooms and a sky roof with a swimming pool and a restaurant. The projected budget for the expansion is approximately $4.5 billion. Architect Moshe Safdie, who designed the original MBS property, is expected to be involved in the design of the new building. Safdie also designed Singapore’s latest architectural icon, Jewel Changi Airport. The additional $9 billion investment pledged by the two IRs...

Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has announced that it will not be going ahead with proposed changes to the rules for short-term stays in private homes and that the minimum stay period of three months will continue to apply. URA came to the decision after extensive consultations with diverse groups of stakeholders, starting from as early as 2015. A draft regulatory framework was proposed in April 2018 to allow owners at strata-titled developments to accommodate short-term stays if they get 80 per cent consent from owners. The framework also required owners to register their p...

The AC Hotel by Marriott coming to New York City is set to be the world’s tallest modular hotel.   The 360-foot-tall AC Hotel New York NoMad will include 168 guest rooms that will be built in a factory in Poland before being shipped to the city. The amazing thing is that, once they arrive, the hotel can be erected in just 90 days, according to Marriott. The 168 prefabricated guest rooms will arrive in New York City fully constructed. Each “module” will house a fully outfitted hotel room complete with beds, sheets, pillow, flooring, and toiletries. The hotel, which is expected to...

In the first quarter of 2019, about 79 per cent of private apartments were sold to locals, the most since the first quarter of 2009. When it comes to luxury apartments in Singapore, there was also a big jump, from 36 per cent in the first quarter of 2018 to 69 per cent in the same period of this year. Analysts opined that some foreign buyers may have stayed away due to the cooling measures announced in July 2018, including higher stamp duties which hit 20 per cent for foreigners. Separately, another study found that while most locals believe home prices are too high, two-thirds of Singap...

Chinese tech giant Huawei recently announced the launch of a cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) innovation lab in Singapore while pledging to commit “hundreds of millions” worth of investment in the Republic and the Asia Pacific market in the coming years. Mr Edward Deng, Vice President of Huawei’s cloud business unit, said that the main aim of the new open lab, which will be available for everyone to use, is to promote cloud and AI technologies to be adopted in Singapore. He told reporters on the sidelines of the Huawei Cloud Summit 2019 that the open lab mechanism h...

British media and digital marketing communications company, Dentsu Aegis Network, conducted its annual Digital Society Index study, which is in its second edition. The study, done in collaboration with analysis firm Oxford Economics, polled more than 43,000 people from 24 countries including China and the United States from July and August. Based on the survey, Singapore is the top digital society, with more citizens trusting technology and reaping its benefits compared with their counterparts in other countries. It was also found that a higher-than-average number of Singaporeans are aware...

According to the latest flash estimates from real estate portal SRX Property, the private resale property market saw its biggest recovery in terms of sales volume since the start of the July 2018 cooling measures. Also showing resilience, resale prices are now just 0.6 per cent lower than when it peaked just before the measures were announced. The flash estimates showed that the number of resale non-landed private homes sold in March 2019 was 830 units, a 59.3 per cent increase from February where only 521 units were moved. It should be noted, however, that sales volume during the Chinese N...

Singapore has clinched the title of the world’s top maritime capital for the fourth consecutive time in the Leading Maritime Capitals of the World (LMC) report, which is released once every two years by risk management firm DNV GL and consultancy firm Menon Economics.  Hamburg, Germany came in second overall, followed by Rotterdam in the Netherlands in third place, with Hong Kong and London rounding up the top five and Shanghai coming in in sixth place. The report, first published in 2012, was released by consultancy firm Menon Economics on 10 April 2019, assessed a total of 15 maritime...

Thailand’s biggest port, Laem Chabang, which is located north of the resort city of Pattaya, is in line for an 88 billion Baht (S$2.78 billion) infusion from the government of Thailand. The government is keen to make Laem Chabang a core piece of a grand economic project which is known as the Eastern Economic Corridor. The port lays southeast of Bangkok, along the Gulf of Thailand, an area that the Thai government envisions as a crossroads for trade throughout the Mekong Delta region. That vision, however, would require additional upgrading of the area’s infrastructure.  The developme...