Filipino President Duterte has shown he’s open to Chinese business
Leading today’s roundup, Philippine President Rodgrigo Duterte has opened the gates for offshore gambling operations and the result has been a Chinese-fuelled run on Manila property. And with casinos already firmly established in Singapore, the city-state’s residents are now continuing to bet on collective residential sales as a pair of new sites hit the market near Mountbatten and Holland Village in the central region. In Shanghai, HKR International has opened a luxury hotel in the new HKRI Taikoo Hui mega-complex on West Nanjing Road, and there’s also news from the co-working scene in Southeast Asia, so keep reading for all the details.
Mainland Love of Gambling Fuels Manila Property Boom
In Manila’s main financial district and its fringes, signs of the new inhabitants are everywhere: the restaurants serving steaming Chinese hotpots and dumplings, the Mandarin broadcasts at the Mall of Asia, and the soaring property prices.
While Chinese investors have been snapping up big swathes of high-end housing in Hong Kong, London and New York for years to move their money offshore, this new rush is motivated by something different: Manila’s booming gaming industry. Read more>>
Two En Bloc Sites Totalling $77.3M Hit SG Market
Two collective sale sites have hit the Singapore market – in Margate Road and near Holland Village. It will be the first attempt to sell en bloc the 15-unit Margate Point, which has a minimum expected price of S$38 million ($28.5 million). The site could be redeveloped into a maximum of 35 apartments with an average size of 70 square metres per unit, said JLL.
Meanwhile, the owners of the 19-unit Holland Tower condominium near Holland Village have put their site up for sale with a reserve price of S$65 million ($48.8 million). The freehold site at 10 Holland Heights occupies a land area of 21,871 square feet. The reserve price works out to S$1,489 psf ppr, which implies that the site has a maximum allowable built-up area of about 43,650 square feet, or a plot ratio of about two times. Read more>>
Sukhothai Shanghai Opens in HKRI Taikoo Hui
Sukhothai Shanghai is now open in the HKRI Taikoo Hui complex on West Nanjing Road in Shanghai Jing’an business district. Owned by Sukhothai Hotels & Resorts of HKR International, the Sukhothai Shanghai comprises 170 rooms and 31 residence-style suites offering between 44 and 172 square-metres of space.
The hotel offers five dining venues and a ballroom, along with six multi-purpose function rooms, spanning 450 square metres. The property, a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, also provides health and wellness facilities including a 198-square-metre fitness studio, a 25-metre heated indoor pool, sauna and steam room. Read more>>
Old Shanghai Building Turned into Instagrammable Restaurant
An old school building in Shanghai has been transformed by Coordination Asia into a restaurant with social media-optimised decor. The local architecture and interior design studio overhauled the 19th century building for Gaga restaurants, to create Changning Villa.
Gaga’s target audience are young women who are “fashion-conscious and highly digitally engaged.” Healthy eating and living is also increasingly popular with the young Shanghainese crowd. To attract this clientel Coordination Asia has a secret weapon – a design process that optimises interiors so they can become some of the city’s most covetable Instagram backdrops. Read more>>
UOB Partners with Co-Working Firms for 20% Rental Discounts
United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB) signed a deal with four Southeast Asian coworking firms to offer its startup and SME customers up to 20% rental discount at any of their spaces. According to an announcement, UOB has signed memoranda of understanding with EV Hive (Indonesia), Common Ground (Malaysia), WORQ (Malaysia), and 80RR Fintech Hub SG (Singapore).
These tie-ups add to UOB’s existing partnership with Toong in Vietnam, making up a total of 33 coworking spaces located around the region including Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Read more>>
Builders Shimao, Jingrui, Fantasia See Sales Growth
Three Chinese developers reported contracted sales growth for the four months ended April 30. Shimao Property saw its contracted sales jump 53 percent to RMB 41.02 billion. The contracted sold area amounted to 2.56 million square metres, up by 57 percent year-on-year.
Jingrui Holdings Limited said its aggregated contracted sales rose 4.4 percent year-on-year to RMB 4.36 billion, with a contracted gross floor area of 46,619 square metres. Fantasia Holdings Group recorded a 121-time surge in contracted sales to RMB 6.34 million. During the period, the corresponding gross floor area sold was 664,506 square metres. Read more>>
Tune in again tomorrow for more news, and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter, or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.
Leave a Reply