TRAVEL: On top of the world down under

But I’m glad to report that it didn’t prove to be a bridge too far for me. I climbed all the way to the crest of the sweeping arches of this iconic structure.

It was a wonderful feeling, standing 135 metres above the waters of Sydney’s vast and impressive harbour.

That’s about 400 feet in old money, and with nothing but a handrail between you and infinity, it’s certainly in the ‘exciting’ category.

Far below you are the tips of the shell-like structure of the world-famous Sydney Opera House, another landmark emblem of this vibrant city.

Behind you, at eye-sight level, are the skyscrapers of Sydney’s Central Business District. Buzzing about in the bay far below are the green-and-white harbour ferries, yet another trademark of this wonderful place.

Now, I freely admit to being apprehensive the day before the ‘Big Climb’ to the top of the ‘Coat Hanger,’ as local folk call their double-arch connection between north and south Sydney.

But when one member of our 12-strong team of bridge climbers admitted she suffered from vertigo but was still having a go, it made the rest of our anxieties seem like small beer.

So onward, inward and upward we went, linked permanently to the structure with a solid-steel loop.

The ‘catwalk’ out to the major retaining piers made me feel like a model pupil, garbed in my rather-fetching, all-in-one blue suit to protect one from the rain and wind, and a jaunty ‘Bridge Climb’ cap. The drop below the open-meshed grid that you walk on was just a taster.

But all the kitting out and safety talk for the group had made us feel like a small specialist team. It’s all part of the camaraderie and esprit de corps that the experienced guide wants to engender – and it works.

After the catwalk, the ‘Crazy Cottage’ system of higgledy-piggledy stairwells take you on to the bridge proper. Then you’re on your way to a mile-long trek up and down one of the architectural wonders of the world.

You actually feel quite privileged, even if it sets you back around £140 for the ‘pleasure’ of doing it. All the time, the guide is communicating with you on a head-set, and you can stop to take in the views or a breather.

It was just one of three ‘firsts’ that my wife and I chalked up on what was, let’s face it, a trip of a lifetime. First time we had flown halfway round the world Down Under, a near 24-hour trip made all the easier by a smooth passage out with British Airways, via Singapore.

It’s a long haul, all right. But the excellent staff really did make you proud to be flying the British flag, a feeling reinforced when the Sydneysiders were full of enthusiasm for the success of the British Olympics. After their Millennium Olympics extravaganza, it was praise indeed, and well received by us.

To be honest, the openness and friendliness of the Aussies blew me away. They really do say ‘G’day’ and ‘All right mate?’ at the drop of an Outback hat.

The other ‘first’ for us was travelling the 1,000-mile journey up the New South Wales coast in a campervan, which was hired from the suitably-named ‘Britz’ firm that looks after visitors from the old country and beyond.

It took a bit of getting used to at first, but once you’re out of hotel mode, into the spirit of adventure on the road, and also into the routine, it’s great fun.

First night was just a couple of hours’ drive north to the Stockton area of Newcastle. This little bit of old North East England – on the banks of the Hunter River – still exports vast amounts of coal, unlike the Tyneside original. But away from the working docks, there is much to charm the visitor. The surfing beaches for starters. Stockton itself is just a quick ferry ride from the city and has its own massive dune-backed coastline, just one dune crest away from Stockton Beach Campsite, run by a charming couple.

Next stop was the wonderful Nambucca Heads Campsite, a four-hour drive up the Pacific Highway. It really is an enchanting place, right at the mouth of a vast estuary, with huge sweeps of sand and rhythmic, rolling waves that lull you into a deep sleep at night.

Adjacant to it is a sea wall that is exoctically covered with bright public art and messages painted on by visitors. Sounds dreadful, but it’s fascinating.

Another few hours north is Suffolk Beach and another idyllic campsite, with all mod cons. Showers, communal barbecue facilities, washeteria and the rest.

It’s all a far cry from bustling Sydney, but the charms of this emblematic Aussie city are a great attraction. Beneath the bridge is the Rocks area, where the original European settlers set up shop. Some of the original houses, pubs and shops are there still there, hugging the small streets and alleyways, and serving as great places to discover and dine in.

In contrast, the state-of-the-art shopping malls cling to nearby George and Pitt Street, with the jewel in the historic crown being the Queen Victoria Building, or QVB, which houses four storeys of shops in a paradise of cast-iron, tiles and glass.

To get away, stroll round the sea-front Botanic Gardens, or take the 30-minute ferry to Manly, home of the surfing craze that swept round the world.

While I commuted back for the bridge climb, Mrs Sutton strolled the beaches, headlands, cafes and art galleries that laid-back Manly offers to visitors and those who choose to live there. Very healthy, very wholesome.

It may help to know that we found our hotel accommodation through the world-wide Accor Group, who offer high, middle and lower-price hotels from five-star Sofitel, to four-star Sebel, to three-star Ibis, and more. The full range that we experienced served us well.

Be warned that Australia is not cheap any more. Basics are pretty expensive with the strong Aussie dollar – but that could change. Whatever, it was a cost worth paying for a priceless experience.

1 Catch a ferry to Manly for just A$14 return (that’s less than a tenner). You see Sydney Harbour Bridge in all its glory – and it’s a great destination too.

2Wander the Rocks area of the original Sydney settlement. Lanes, alleys, old pubs and eating places. 
This is a great way to get a taste of the real Sydney.

3 Shop till you drop in George Street and Pitt Street area and visit the QVB (Queen Victoria Building), a four-storey palace of cast-iron, glass and tiles.

Travel facts:

* Lindsay Sutton flew with British Airways from Manchester to London, then Heathrow to Sydney, with an airport break in Singapore. BA flies daily flights to Sydney, from £866 return – www.ba.com

Britz campervan was a two-berth Mercedes Sprinter, costing around £916 for eight days – Britz

* Campsites: Newcastle – www.stocktonbeach.com; Nambucca Head – www.whitealbatross.com.au; Byron Bay – www.suffolkbeachfront.com.au. Between £26 and £40 for an overnight powered site.

* Sydney Harbour Bridge climb – www.bridgeclimb.com

* Hotel Sebel, Sydney (www.sebelsurryhills.com) and Hotel Sebel Manly in Manly Beach (www.accorhotels.com) from £224 per night for two.

* Ibis Darling Bay from around £100 per night for two – www.ibis.com/sydney

* For further tourist info, visit Sydney or Tourism-Australia

TRAVEL: On top of the world down under

Royal Selangor melds heritage and design in latest collection

Benson Saw (foreground) and Voon Wong of VW+BS ‘wanted to do something contemporary with an old material and old processes’ for the collection they designed for Royal Selangor.

Royal Selangor’s latest tableware collection exemplifies a modern take on a traditional material.

A CENTURY-old company, synonymous with craft heritage, joins forces with award-winning designers to push design boundaries. The upshot: a stunning collection of pewter tableware named Landscape.

The collection is a collaboration between Royal Selangor and international design practice VW+BS to fashion everyday objects like trays, bowls, tea caddies and candleholders from the age-old metal alloy.

Alluding to natural forms and phenomena, a tray dubbed Track is suggestive of sand dunes with ridges carved by a receding tide; the anthropomorphic Wave bowls are redolent of women’s sensuous curves while the Erosion bowls, a set of six angular-shaped dishes, when put together form the contours of a mountain range.

Sculptural yet functional, these objects reflect modern sensibilities that resonate with contemporary lifestyles.

Design approach

“What interests us about this collaboration is that pewter is a traditional material often perceived as quite dowdy,” says Voon Wong of VW+BS, at the launch of Landscape at Space Furniture Kuala Lumpur recently.

“So we wanted to do something contemporary with an old material and old processes.”

A three-pronged candle stick, Clover, allows you to change the heights of the candles.

Wong, a Singaporean, and Penang-born Benson Saw make up the creative sparks behind the multi-disciplinary firm. The third partner, Brit Ian Macready, oversees the practice’s design marketing and sales. With offices in London, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, VW+BS’s impressive portfolio lists over 150 architectural, interior and product design projects in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Drawing on their backgrounds in architecture, product design and engineering, VW+BS has garnered multiple accolades for their works, which include their iconic Loop Lamp. Manufactured by Italian lighting company FontanaArte, the Lamp was shortlisted for the prestigious Compasso d’Oro (the Oscars of the design world) in 2004. Their recent design of the Upper Class bar and cabin interior for Virgin Atlantic Airways clinched the FX 2012 Product Design of the Year awarded by FX International Interior Design Awards (FX magazine is a leading, global interior design publication for the contract industry).

VW+BS’s products and projects have graced the pages of international design publications like Wallpaper*, Monocle, Architectural Digest, and Elle Decoration.

Not bound by a specific “look” or fixed aesthetics, the duo constantly explores materials and processes, both age-old and cutting-edge. In 2007, they launched their collection of bone china tableware, Setcast, by teaming up with China-based Asianera; the high-quality bone china manufacturer’s clients include Alessi and Shanghai Tang.

“Through these explorations, we understand, and learn about the constraints of, these materials and processes which then spur ideas for different projects,” explains Kuala Lumpur-based Saw.

For instance, a cursory glance at the Crease tray from Landscape reminds one of the Crease bowl from their bone china collection. A closer look reveals how the different materials affect the forms and their light-reflecting properties.

“Pewter has been used since medieval times in Europe and Royal Selangor has been producing pewter since 1885. But it hasn’t been used so much (barring decorative objects) in recent times so we thought it would be interesting to work with the material,” says London-based Wong who relished the idea of working with a heritage brand like Royal Selangor with its strong history of producing high-quality pewter products.

“Besides, I grew up knowing about Royal Selangor (then Selangor Pewter) since my dad has a few tankards in his collection,” he adds, chuckling.

Wong and Saw started with a vague idea of doing natural forms and ferreting out the inherent qualities of pewter – its malleability, versatility and warmth.

A pewter artisan using a flexible grinder to smooth the surface of the Crease tray. Saw praises Royal Selangor craftsmen for being ‘absolutely skilful and meticulous’ in fabrication.

VW+BS’s affinity for modular systems is obvious in their design for Erosion bowls and past works like the SliceBox coffee table and C Shelves for Decode, a British design and manufacturing company.

“Modularity is something we’ve always been interested in,” says the Architectural Association-trained Wong. “To pull something apart so they have several functions and when they come together they perform a different function.

“Working with pewter for the first time has been a very educational process,” says the designer who has worked with glass, stone, metal and wood.

“The material confounds our expectations of what metal does because we always think we form or mill metal but actually these pewter objects are cast,” he explains.

“The beauty of casting is you can achieve varying thickness for the material and hence create something three dimensional and sculptural. It has challenged the way we view this material.”

Metal casting also allows the designers to incorporate intricate details like sharp edges or curves with tight radii, Saw adds.

“With wood or ceramic or glass, one can’t achieve that because the material is brittle and will chip easily,” says Saw who studied furniture design at London’s prestigious Royal College of Arts.

Ideas for products kept rolling off their drawing boards.

“We started with a lot more products but through a process of editing, some weren’t feasible due to weight, scale or complexity, and were left on the cutting room floor,” says Wong.

Creative collaboration: Erosion is a set of six angular shaped dishes that can be used individually and placed together to form a rectangle. The set is part of the Landscape tableware collection designed by VW+BS for Royal Selangor. — Product photos from Royal Selangor

Some items, like the three-pronged Clover candleholder, underwent various incarnations and tweaks, such as thicker walls and longer prongs. The Pillar tea caddy and sugar bowl were later additions.

“Working with Royal Selangor was a great experience as the craftsmen have been absolutely skilful and meticulous in fabrication the tableware,” Saw raves.

Ultimately, Wong and Saw hope to demonstrate that contemporary designs can be applied to old material. “The (pewter-making) process has remained unchanged and has not been mechanized in many ways, so this collection is the marriage of something handcrafted and something modern,” says Wong. “And it also demonstrates that these two worlds can co-exist.”

Talent hookups

Since the late 1970s when Royal Selangor formalised its design department, the company has teamed up with designers, in-house and externally, to develop innovative pewter designs. Collaborations with international designers like Dane Erik Magnussen, Brit Nick Munro and Hong Kong native Freeman Lau have thrust the company onto the global design map.

The company’s wine funnel, under its Wine Celebration range, clinched the coveted Red Dot Award for Product Design from Germany’s Design Zentrum and the Japan’s Good Design award. Magnussen’s tableware range snagged the Design Plus Award at the Frankfurt International Gift Fair in 1989 and his hip flask won the Design Plus Award in 1991.

Today, Royal Selangor’s design studio employs 30 staff comprising product designers, sculptors, graphic designers, packaging designers, and prototype makers.

“We have always liked collaborating with designers as it challenges our product development team to look at pewter in a different light,” says Yong Yoon Li, executive director of Royal Selangor International.

“Besides, designers who don’t work with pewter on a daily basis bring a different viewpoint to our company.”

In the case of Landscape, VW+BS was given carte blanche to design a collection of products around the home and office.

“They were given a free rein to come up with something out of this world,” says Yong, the fourth generation in the family business.

The Moon lamp is Royal Selangor’s first venture into making lights, utilising pewter in combination with wood. A pewter sheet lining the cavity of a square wooden chassis reflects the LED bulb to create a crescent moon effect.

Of the Landscape collection, Yong says, “One of my favourite pieces is the Erosion which I feel is a statement piece for us. But I had to convince our sales team to include Erosion in the collection. Our sales team works on historical data and said ‘in our experience with such things, we don’t sell many of these…’ ”

Because of their distinct angles, shapes and sculptural forms, each Landscape object is painstakingly handcrafted.

To date, Royal Selangor has unveiled the collection at international design and trade shows like 100% Design London, 100% Design Singapore, and the Spring Fair International in Birmingham, Britain, Europe’s leading home and gift trade fair.

“In our realm, heritage, quality and craftsmanship, these are a given. And we’ve always valued design in our brand essence,” Yong says. “We will always continue speaking with people like VW+BS to come up with evocative and consistently good, enduring designs.”

As for Landscape, “It’s a global product for people who enjoy good, contemporary design,” Yong sums up.

The Landscape collection by VW+BS for Royal Selangor is priced from RM280 to RM1,900 and is available at all Royal Selangor retail stores, authorised dealers and online at royalselangor.com.

Royal Selangor melds heritage and design in latest collection

Repsol targets a revival of fortunes

March 31, 2013 7:58 pm

Repsol targets a revival of fortunes

Row over cell on flight turns ugly on ground

The Shamshabad airport police is probing an FIR filed by a Malaysian advocate who was allegedly beaten with a belt and thrashed by a co-passenger and his bodyguard on the Outer Ring Road very early on Sunday morning following a tiff on board their Kuala Lumpur-Hyderabad flight. The co-passenger, Mr Zain Ravdjee, son of realtor and businessman Zulfi Ravdjee, has filed a counter complaint alleging that it was he who was attacked.

Malaysian advocate Shankar Ram Pohumall said he had asked the co-passenger to switch off his mobile phone. Both were travelling first class on Malaysian Airways flight MH 0198.

Mr Pohumall, 42, had come to India to meet forensic experts at Truth Labs regarding a case in Malaysia on Indians who had landed up in a local jail. He said that when the flight was taxiing for take-off at Kuala Lumpur airport, a flight steward told a passenger in the front row in business class not to speak on his mobile phone and there was some exchange of words. “I told that passenger not to compromise the safety of all passengers. The passenger stopped talking and appeared to be angry with me. I warned him as it was a serious safety concern.”

On arriving in Hyderabad, Mr Pohumall drove off in a car at 12.45 am. His alleges that his car was stopped after the toll gate by two cars that had been following him. “A man in a safari dress came out from the car in front of ours and told me to come out. I was surprised and came out thinking that he is a man from the authorities.

“Almost immediately after coming out I noticed that the same male passenger who was on the flight came out from the car in front and said something to the man in the safari dress. This man then started punching me. I avoided it. He then took out his belt and struck me several times. Shocked at this, I shouted, ‘What are you doing… I am a lawyer and I will report you.‘ He replied, ‘I don’t care whether you are a judge or a lawyer,’” Mr Pohumall said, adding that he told his driver to call the police but the mobile was snatched and thrown away by another man who emerged from the car.

“I was then attacked by the male passenger who kicked me twice. He tried punching me in the face but got me in the left arm. The man who came from the car at the back told me to apologise but the male passenger shouted at me, ‘Kneel down and beg for apology’. I refused because he is not the law. As it is, the man in the safari dress started attacking again with his belt and this time I manage to snatch the belt,” Mr Pohumall said.

Mr Pohumall was admitted to Trident hospital with injuries.

A case was booked under IPC Sections 324 and 341 against Mr Zain Ravdjee and his bodyguards on Saturday.

The police is also probing a counter case filed by Mr Ravdjee, against Mr Pohumall. Mr Ravdjee alleged that Mr Pohumall had misbehaved with him and his wife. The counter case was booked under IPC Sections 341 and 506.

Shamshabad DCP K. Ramesh Naidu said, “We have received two complaints and two cases are booked. We are trying to talk to the other passengers on the flight. We will also record the statements of the cabin crew.” There were six passengers in first class, he said.

Mr Pohumall says the episode shocked him. “I thought what happens in India is only in the movies where spoilt brats abuse the power and authority given to their parents. This assault on me has got to be viewed very seriously by the Indian authorities. I have informed our embassy and other relevant authorities.”

Malaysian Airlines customer service officer Mr Bhupendar said the cabin crew did not report the episode. “Nothing has happened within the terminal. The hotel personnel where the passenger Shankar Ram Pohumall was to stay called us and informed about the incident.”

He said that the aircraft had departed by then. “The Shamshabad SI asked us for the passenger manifest. We have provided them the same. We are now working on taking statements of cabin crew and will verify the cameras on the flight,” the airline officer said.

Shamshabad sub-inspector Srikanth Goud said, “We got the passenger treated at Trident Hospital after he filed the complaint.”

Denying the allegations, Mr Zain Ravdjee said, “I and my wife were returning after a holiday in Singapore. We are newly married. I was sitting in the first row. This man was sitting in the third row. It takes 15 minutes after the doors are shut for the flight to take off. Soon after the doors were shut I was switching off my phone. The plane was not even moving. Then this man from behind started abusing in the name of my father. He shouted at me unnecessarily. The steward and co-passengers are witness to it. He told me, ‘You don’t know who I am. I will teach you a lesson.’ He was drunk and the cabin crew can confirm this. He was giving bad looks (sic) continuously throughout the flight while walking towards the toilet. My wife was terrified by his misbehaviour.”

After landing in Hyderabad, Mr Ravdjee said, “We got down and my wife left in another car. This man was following my car. I found his Innova trying to cross me. Suddenly he stopped the car in front of us and banged on my door and tried to pull me out. When he attacked, I defended myself and pushed him back. I don’t know how he received his injuries. I have no bodyguards accompanying me. Usually bodyguards accompany me but it was 1 am so there was no one there except my driver Mahendar. Then I went home and slept and next day went to Shamshabad police station and lodged a complaint.”

He added, “His allegations that I and my guards beat him up are false and baseless.”

Mr Pohumall insists that “his counter report is definitely false as the CCTV will show. If there is anything, why not raise it in the aircraft or at the airport when we landed? His allegations are false.”

Row over cell on flight turns ugly on ground

Singapore Mercantile Exchange hunting agricultural commodities

V Hariharan, CEO of the Singapore Mercantile Exchange

Set up in 2010, the Singapore Mercantile Exchange, a pan-Asian commodity and currency derivatives exchange, is now hunting for more agricultural commodities from black pepper in Vietnam to rubber in Thailand, to become the regional centre for agriculture futures transactions.

SMX last month signed a memorandum of understanding with the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand to include rubber futures in its trading platform, following similar deals with Vietnam and Indonesia, which are famous for their black pepper and palm oil.

“Under the MoU, we collaborate on the broad-based agreement to make contracts global,” CEO V Hariharan said during an interview in Bangkok. “We hope to launch more such Asia-centric contracts adding to the list of products being offered by SMX that can be established as Asian benchmarks for prices of commodities being predominantly consumed and/or produced in Asia.

“You should be the price-setter, not let it be set by someone else. You should be the price-setter for the commodities.”

It makes more sense for Asia to set prices for its own products, instead of letting that responsibility fall in the hands of investors in the other parts of the world.

While Argentina is the major global supplier of soybeans, the soybean price is set at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world’s largest. Likewise, while Thailand is the world’s largest supplier of rubber, but the price is also set in Chicago.

New contracts will boost the range of products provided by SMX, and through SMX, which is one of the 58 members of the World Federation of Exchanges, farm products from those countries can be tradable to investors across the world from the United States to Japan. This would free the products from price cycles, when prices fall at the end of the harvest season and rise when there is no new output.

More agricultural commodities mean more farmers would be guaranteed of demand and know about the future prices of their crops. Corn, rice, wheat and cotton dominate the market.

Commodity futures are being used by traders as a hedging tool, with less than 5 per cent of commodities physically delivered.

Black pepper futures, with black pepper from Vietnam as the underlying asset, became tradable in Singapore in February 2012. It was dubbed as the world’s first black pepper futures and is the first commodity futures on the Singapore-based exchange, which is keener on currency derivatives. Farm commodity trading is still sluggish due to the higher prices of other commodities like gold and oil. However, the volume will grow. Black pepper futures and E-gold futures based on Indian gold prices helped SMX achieve turnover of over US$71 billion in 2012.

With over four million contracts traded on the exchange since its launch in August 2010, the end of 2012 saw cumulative turnover of over $134 billion since SMX went live. During 2012, the average daily volume was over 8,200 contracts, with the peak at 30,075 contracts.

Despite the low volume of farm futures, “it’s a good financing mechanism for farmers and it’s good for the economy”, Hariharan said.

More products will make SMX the true regional hub for derivatives, putting it on par with global exchanges that are competing for trade via niche products. Thailand Futures Exchange offers gold futures, but they are traded in Thai baht not in US dollars as at SMX. In Hong Kong, the exchange is famous for gold and yuan, but farm products are not Hong Kong’s focus.

“We can work together to find the products that benefit both exchanges,” he said, referring to the collaboration with Thailand’s exchange.

Besides rubber, there’s a possibility of including ethanol, sugar and tapioca from Thailand, he added. The products will then reach global investors, allowing the Asian exchange to set prices for commodities cultivated in the region.

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Singapore Mercantile Exchange hunting agricultural commodities

Qatargas delivers first cargo of LNG to Singapore - Peninsula On

The Q-Max LNG carrier ‘Umm Slal’.

Doha: Qatargas has delivered its first ever cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Singapore.  The cargo was delivered on board the Q-Max LNG carrier “Umm Slal” to Singapore LNG Corporation Pte Ltd’s (SLNG) first LNG receiving terminal at Jurong Island.

Qatargas Chief Executive Officer Khalid bin Khalifa Al Thani said: “Qatari LNG continues to have a key role to play in helping countries around the world improve the diversity of their energy supplies. We are pleased with this development which will help to meet the growing demand for energy in Singapore and help us build our relationship with a new customer.  Qatargas is at the forefront of commissioning new LNG Terminals and is confident of its continuing ability to maintain safe, long-term reliable supplies of clean LNG energy to countries where it is needed the most.”

He said: “Under the guidance of H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, Minister of Energy and  Industry and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Qatargas, Qatari LNG has a key role to play in helping governments around the world improve the diversity of their energy supplies. The start-up of SLNG’s first LNG terminal, located in the heart of South East Asia, is a significant milestone meeting the growing demand for energy in Singapore and we at Qatargas are very proud to have played a contributing role.”

The Umm Slal began her voyage from Ras Laffan Port on 17 March with approximately 200,000 cubic meters of LNG onboard and on March 27, she safely berthed and commenced discharging her cargo at Jurong Island LNG terminal, marking the first delivery of LNG from Qatargas to Singapore.  This delivery will further strengthen the relationship between Qatar and Singapore as well as between the two companies over the long-term.

The Singapore LNG Terminal is the second LNG terminal in South East Asia to procure commissioning cargo from Qatargas.  In June 2011, Qatargas delivered a commissioning cargo to Thailand’s Map Ta Phut LNG Terminal.  Qatargas has developed considerable expertise in supporting the commissioning of new LNG Terminals globally. To date, the company has provided commissioning cargoes to nine LNG terminals, with Singapore being the tenth such arrangement.  The Peninsula

Qatargas delivers first cargo of LNG to Singapore - Peninsula On

As Banks in Cyprus Falter, Other Tax Havens Step In

While Cyprus and its rivals dislike being described as “tax havens” and prefer to be known as “offshore financial centers,” those now picking at Cyprus’ carcass trumpet their ability to keep money beyond the reach of tax authorities. A Swiss company, the Gonthier Group, last week sent e-mails to Cyprus firms working with foreigners, suggesting they offer their clients a Swiss alternative, namely an investment “vehicle which is extremely low-profile, not classified as a bank account or trust and thus very much under the radar of national fiscal authorities.”

Tilly Schneeberger Gonthier, the head of the Montreux-based company, said on Sunday by telephone that her pitch was “absolutely not” an invitation to evade taxes, but merely an offer of a secure alternative to Cyprus-based investment vehicles. She denied wanting to hurt the Cypriot financial services industry.

“We are trying to help them,” Ms. Gonthier said. “They have a lot of unhappy clients.”

She said that nobody in Cyprus had yet taken up her offer, but added: “This doesn’t happen very fast. It takes time.”

Mr. Papadopoulos, the parliamentary finance committee head, said he didn’t begrudge competitors in other locations trying to lure away clients rattled by his own country’s troubles. With Cyprus and dozens of other havens chasing the same limited pool of clients, he said, competition is fierce: “This is a zero-sum game.”

Echoing a widespread view here, he complained that Cyprus had been unfairly singled out as a haven for shady money by the European Union even as others, including fellow members of the 27-nation bloc, provide much the same services.

“We have made mistakes, but the whole point of seeking help from the European Union was to get fair treatment,” he said, referring to Cyprus’s request for a 10 billion euro lifeline from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund. “We now see that we are still a long way from being a union in which the same rules apply equally.”

A central demand of a bailout package announced early last Monday in Brussels, the headquarters of the union’s bureaucratic apparatus, is that Cyprus dismantle its finance-dominated economic model. Just a few years ago, this model produced growth rates of 5 percent or more but is now crumbling amid the rubble of its reckless and destitute banks.

Cypriot banks gorged for years on deposits from overseas, especially Russia, and spewed out loans at such a rate that the banking sector ended up dwarfing the rest of the economy. Its total assets — now mostly loans of uncertain worth — grew to be eight times larger than the whole country’s economic output.

But this imbalance is no worse than that in Malta, where the banking sector is also about eight times gross domestic product. And it is far less severe than in Luxembourg, where banking assets are more than 22 times G.D.P. Both Malta and Luxembourg, each a member of the European Union, last week loudly insisted they were very different from Cyprus — while their own financial service providers rushed to court Cyprus’s clients.

How much success those countries have had at getting Russians and others to decamp is still unclear, although many lawyers here acknowledge that they have already helped a number of foreign clients open new bank accounts outside Cyprus. The country’s own banks, closed for nearly two weeks to prevent depositors from withdrawing all their cash, reopened last week but are now caught up in a web of capital controls that make most normal transactions all but impossible.

Vasilis Zertalis, the chief executive of Prospectacy, a Nicosia corporate services company, said he understood that foreigners with companies and investment vehicles registered in Cyprus now needed to find banks elsewhere. But he is outraged by the efforts of rival centers to profit from Cyprus’s pain.

“When somebody is down, you should not try to push them further and give them a final blow,” said Mr. Zertalis. “I believe in capitalism, but there should be certain ethics. It is not proper to try and steal our clients and take advantage of this country’s misery.”

As Cypriot authorities last week unveiled plans to shut down Cyprus’s second biggest bank, Laiki, and worked out a strategy to preserve the Bank of Cyprus, the country’s biggest financial institution, by effectively confiscating 60 percent or more of deposits over 100,000 euros, a financial services company in the Cayman Islands made a particularly transparent grab for business.

“It has been very interesting in your part of the world recently,” Bateman Financial said in an e-mail sent to Mr. Zertalis and other Cypriots in the same line of work. “Given the inherent pressure banks will be placed under in Cyprus, your firm may see a need to consider other jurisdictions when consulting clients. The Cayman Islands can offer the stability that is currently desired.”

(Read More: Cyprus Bank Controls to Last a Month: Minister)

As Banks in Cyprus Falter, Other Tax Havens Step In

Job extension after 60 not mandatory

I am writing to you with regards to the recent change in the labour law which changed the retirement age from 60 to 65. I am currently working in a private company in the Sharjah Airport International Free Zone (SAIF) . Does this change in labour law apply to free zones? Secondly, is it mandatory for employers to extend the contract after the employee reaches 60, or is it an option extended to employers which can be exercised upon their will?

Normally each free-zone authority in the UAE issues its own regulations which are independent of the provisions stipulated in Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 relating to labour relations. 

The Sharjah Airport International Free Zone somewhat follows Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 concerning matters relating to employees of legal entities incorporated in SAIF. It is understood that the renewal of employment visas for employees of legal entities incorporated within SAIF Zone, who have reached the age of 60, is subject to the approval of the Ministry of Interior which may renew the employment visa of such an employee for a period of one year from the date of the visa expiry. At the expiry of the one-year period, the Ministry of Interior may, at their discretion, continue to renew the employment visa of an over-60-year-old employee on an annual basis, till the employee turns 65 or more, depending upon qualifications and expertise of such an employee.  

Article 3© of Ministerial Order No. 52 of 1989 issued by the Ministry of Labour regarding “The Rules and Procedures to be adopted at the Labour Permit Sections with respect to the Recruitment of non-national labourers for employment in the UAE” states: “The labour recruited shall not be less than 18 and not more than 60 years old. The maximum age limitation, however, may be waived if the employee to be recruited shall have an extensive and rare experience in the field of his specialisation, provided the job he has been recruited for employment in the UAE shall be of economic importance and such waiver shall be sanctioned by the minister.”

The Ministry of Interior may take into consideration the provisions of the ministerial order at the time of renewal of the employment visa of an employee who has reached 60; although it is not mandatory for the Ministry of Interior to take into consideration the ministerial order provisions, as Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 pertaining to labour relations is not applicable to entities incorporated in the free zones. 

In summary it is not mandatory for the employers to extend the employment contract of an employee who has reached 60.

 

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Visa cancellation without passport

I was working in Abu Dhabi as an engineering consultant from November 2009 to May 2011. After the end of the project, the company gave me a letter of redundancy with two options: to stay employed with the company without pay, or termination of employment.  I selected the second option and they asked me to wait as the company did not have any projects. During that period, I left for India in May 2011. After two months, I sent an email to the HR manager enquiring about my employment status. He said they still didn’t have any projects and sent me a termination letter with one month notice. They asked me to send my passport to cancel the visa. As I was in India, I did not, but they settled my dues and benefits and then cancelled my visa. They sent me the scanned copy of the cancelled visa and labour contract cancellation paper. I was on an unlimited contract at that time.

I would like to know whether I am banned from entering the UAE as my visa and labour contract were cancelled without my passport. I have settled all issues with my bank and my financial slate is clean.

In the event an employee departs from the UAE, for whatsoever reason, without cancellation of the employment visa, the employer could cancel the employment visa six months after the date of departure of the employee from the country.

There should be no ban on you from entering the UAE, notwithstanding the fact that your visa was cancelled without your passport.

 

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Change of visa status

I came to Dubai on a three-month visit visa and was trying to acquire a job. I have now secured a job as an electrical engineer with an architectural firm here in Dubai. I want to know whether I have to exit the country before my employer can apply for an employment visa, or whether it can be done without me having to leave the country.

Your employer could apply for an employment visa for you while you are physically present in the UAE. Since you entered the country on a three-month visit visa, it is not necessary for you to exit the UAE and re-enter on your employment visa, as a change of status can be done without you leaving.

 

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Ashish Mehta, LLB, F.I.C.A., M.C.I.T., M.C.I.Arb., is the founder and Managing Partner of Ashish Mehta Associates, a legal consultancy firm in Dubai. He also practises in India, United Kingdom and Singapore. He has worked with international and commercial legal procedures, providing analysis and counselling on complex legal documents and policies such as commercial transactions, securitisation, real estate acquisitions, financial restructuring for distressed assets, mergers and acquisitions, arbitration and litigation issues. Readers may e-mail their questions to: news@khaleejtimes.com or send them to Legal View, Khaleej Times, PO Box 11243, Dubai.

 

Job extension after 60 not mandatory

Laid-back charm of "new Bali"

For years the Indonesian island of Lombok has been talked up as the “new Bali”. With the announcement of a new international airport providing easy access to a sprawling $700 million mega-resort, the dream was given certain traction. But then came the global financial crisis.

That was four years ago . Let’s see what’s happening in Lombok today.

With great fanfare, Lombok International Airport was eventually opened in October 2011 by Indonesia’s President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The airport now also services all domestic flights to Lombok and while the new location in the south of the island somewhat inconveniences travellers to Lombok’s main city, Mataram, and the more developed Senggigi, it has opened up the island’s white-sand beach paradise, namely Kuta Bay and Tanjung Ann.

Along one of the pristine headlands with 7km of bays and beaches is the site that was supposed to be developed to include luxury hotels, resorts, retailers, a golf course and marina.

Cancelled because of the GFC, the project never got past small wooden surveyor’s pegs left in the ground.

Instead, goats still cling to the cliff face and buffalos meander along the beach.

The only resort in sight is the remote Novotel Lombok, which blends in well because of its native architecture.

The dream of a mega-resort is still kept alive by officials though. Twenty minutes from the airport, the Mandalika Resort is an area of 1035ha with 7.5km of white-sand beaches split into three distinct zones.

Zone one is for luxury stand-alone villas, zone two for hotels, villas, green space and a golf course and zone three for luxury hotels and a marina.

That’s the plan anyway. The Novotel is the only hotel in zone three and is not expecting any neighbours until at least next year. A few villas may pop up before then but certainly no typical international- style hotels.

While the supporting infrastructure and facilities are in an unrushed state, the potholed roads that lead to quiet beaches help to create an off-the-beaten-track kind of charm.

Although Kuta, the current main settlement, goes by the same name as Kuta in Bali, 50km to the east, that’s where the similarity ends. It has a chilled atmosphere more suited to travellers than tourists.

With its shacks selling T-shirts and bars and cafes with bamboo fit-outs, the main road of Kuta is reminiscent of Bali 20 to 30 years ago. The local version of a taxi, unlike the ubiquitous bemo in Bali, is the cidomo – a cart pulled by a pony.

The indigenous people and culture are both known as Sasak. While on Bali most of the inhabitants are Hindu, on Lombok 80 per cent of the population of 2.7 million people are Muslim.

View of the undeveloped Mandalika Resort area from Ashtari restaurant / Picture: Rob Dunlop

The local way of life is on display at Sade, a traditional Sasak village which opens its doors to visitors with an aim to preserve traditions. Seven hundred Sasaks live in the village of 150 thatched-roof houses made of compacted mud and bamboo.

Outside, men herd buffalo while children fish in ponds and cheekily climb trees.

Inside, women work the looms, weaving beautiful textiles from traditional patterns handed down through generations. Along unpaved alleyways, older women sit outside and prepare vegetable for meals, while chickens flutter past small children dancing in the wings. Nearby, another institution perfectly captures the essence of what attracts many visitors to Lombok: great scenery, surf, and laid-back attitudes.

At Ashtari restaurant, surfer dudes rock up with surfboards jockey-strapped to their motorbikes and sit around bare-chested on comfy cushions while drinking milkshakes and reading surfing magazines.

Punters, like surfers drawn to waves, file out on to the elevated platform for stunning coastline views of an area that will one day become Lombok’s long-awaited mega-resort.

Yes, dreams of Lombok’s development have stalled somewhat but this is great news for those seeking less-travelled paths.

FACT FILE

Garuda Indonesia flies daily from Perth to Lombok via Bali (garuda-indonesia.com). Other airlines flying to Lombok from Perth include Singapore Airlines (singaporeair.com) via Singapore and Air Asia (airasia.com) via Kuala Lumpur.

Novotel Lombok, which has recently been refurbished, is at Kuta-Putri Nyale beach. With 102 rooms and villas, some with private pools. It is built in the traditional, thatched-roof architectural style of the local Sasak people. Rates start from $165 a night. novotel.com.

Ashtari restaurant is 2km west of Kuta on the road to Mawan and is open Sunday to Saturday from 8.30am to 6pm. ashtarilombok.com.

Traveller Warning

Although Lombok is a popular holiday destination, it’s important travellers remember that Indonesia is a Third World country without many of the stringent laws and policing of food and drinks that we are subject to here in Australia.

We’ve long been told to steer clear of the local bootleg liquor known as arak. Brewed from rice and coconut palm flowers, it contains up to 50 per cent alcohol. But if brewed incorrectly, it can include methanol which has caused blindness and death.

And after recent high-profile cases, the Australian Medical Association has urged travellers to completely avoid spirits after a number of travellers suffered brain and organ damage and even death after consuming cocktails containing spirits laced with methanol.

The safest way to consume alcohol is to drink bottled beer or buy duty-free — the current limit into Indonesia is one litre of spirits or one litre of wine. Wine is available in supermarkets and specialty shops are becoming more common in Bali, particularly in areas such as Seminyak.

- Niall McIlroy

Laid-back charm of "new Bali"

Coupon website "offered deals without approval"

House of Seafood (above) and Three Wombats Cafe made police reports after their businesses appeared on the Dealon website without their knowledge last week. They were alerted after a customer tried to redeem a Dealon voucher. — PHOTOS: SCREENSHOTS FROM DEALON.COM.SG

Coupon website "offered deals without approval"

Five-star ship visit puts port on map

Five-star ship visit puts port on map

Nick Dalton

Monday, April 1, 2013

© The Cairns Post

EXCLUSIVE: A FRENCH Polynesian cruise ship is to be based in Cairns during two of its 2014 itineraries.

The five-star boutique MS Paul Gauguin will use Cairns as its turnaround port between cruises to Singapore and Fiji next year.

Business leaders say it is the first step towards a campaign to base an international cruise ship in Cairns during the cruising season which would give the economy a multimillion-dollar windfall each year.

Paul Gauguin Cruises president Diane Moore said the company was thrilled that Cairns would be a new port for their passengers.

“We look forward to operating cruises between Cairns and Fiji, and between Singapore and Cairns, aboard the MS Paul Gauguin in June and August 2014,” she said.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland sales and marketing director Brian Hennessy said it was a significant decision by the owners of the luxurious 332-passenger ship.

“This is exciting for Cairns to have an international cruise ship do a turnaround as it means passengers and crew fly in and out of our city for their voyage and spend some time sampling the local tourism assets,” he said.

“A new audience of holidaymakers who enjoy the tropics will be travelling aboard the MS Paul Gauguin and they will get to experience our unique dual World Heritage areas of the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics rainforest. It also will showcase Cairns as an ideal destination for turnarounds, building our credentials to become a base port for cruise ships.

“From an economic point of view, we have the obvious benefit of the ships’ passengers taking some of the more than 600 tours departing Cairns daily.

Five-star ship visit puts port on map

How much should chiefs of government linked companies be paid?

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THE debate continues on how much top directors of government-linked companies (GLCs) should be paid. GLCs here are key drivers of the economy and on many occasions, they are substantial investors in the financial markets. But the one key feature is that GLCs are ultimately owned and controlled by the Government.

Gurmeet Kaur

So the remuneration paid to GLC chiefs can be a touchy issue as shown during Bursa Malaysia Bhd’s shareholder meeting on Thursday. The seemingly high annual remuneration of RM5.54mil paid to its chief executive officer Datuk Tajuddin Atan in 2012 grabbed the attention of minority shareholders.

They wanted the board to explain why Tajuddin’s pay last year had more than doubled from 2011, considering the exchange’s performance was “not impressive”.

To be fair, Tajuddin was appointed to the top post at Bursa on April 1, 2011, meaning his remuneration for the year (amounting to RM3.55mil) covered a nine-month period. So Tajuddin’s salary for 2012 is actually only a 17% increase against a pro rated 2011 salary.

Still, his remuneration is far greater than his predecessor’s. In 2010, former Bursa CEO Datuk Yusli Mohamed Yusoff was paid RM1.54mil.

Then again, Tajuddin’s pay package does not surprise some recruitment specialists who reckon the position of a stock exchange head is perhaps the most coveted in Corporate Malaysia.

Bursa did not give a breakdown of Tajuddin’s RM5.5mil package, which does not include his share grant. It is interesting that Bursa had given its CEO a share grant last April before he had delivered any key performance indicators (KPIs).

So how are other stock exchange chiefs remunerated? Across the causeway, the Singapore Exchange Ltd dished out a remuneration package totalling S$3.901mil for its head honcho Magnus Bocker in 2012. The bulk of Bocker’s remuneration was in the form of a S$2.20mil bonus.

Executive payouts at GLCs have risen in the past few years after the Government initiated the GLC Transformation Programme in 2004 an obvious expectation, say many industry observers, as the Government had recruited top talent from the private sector to helm these companies.

GLCs like CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, Axiata Group Bhd and Malayan Banking Bhd have done well with the infusion of “entrepreneurial spirit”.

On the other hand, there were some GLCs that were unable to meet their top-line KPIs, but had seen remuneration rises for board members. In terms of efficiency levels, GLCs have some way to go to match that of non-GLCs, say analysts.

With a performance-based culture becoming increasingly important, companies need to demonstrate a clearer and stronger link between executive remuneration and company performance typically gauged by earnings growth and shareholder return.

Going forward, with more state-owned entities expected to undergo divestment, as in the cases of Felda Global Ventures Bhd and IHH Healthcare Bhd, there will surely be greater demand for skilled talent.

But exactly how much is an “appropriate” remuneration is a topic open for discussion. It would be good if companies go the extra mile to shed more light on the basket of items that go into determining boardroom remuneration. More often the disclosure of this in the statements of corporate governance read like a standard template.

It is worth noting that the European Union has introduced a new law limiting bonuses to the equivalent of one year’s salary or two years if shareholders specifically approve. The people of little Switzerland have gone a little further by voting in a referendum to outlaw golden handshakes and parachute deals and bonuses for managers involved in takeovers or mergers. It also gives shareholders a binding vote every year on executive pay.

● Deputy news editor Gurmeet Kaur believes that with the global economic recovery still fragile, GLCs would be tested on the strategies put in place by their boards this year.

How much should chiefs of government linked companies be paid?

Canada"s new visa program to attract entrepreneurs envied in US

That elsewhere not only includes Canada, where applicants, if accepted, obtain immediate permanent residency, but also the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore.

Canada"s new visa program to attract entrepreneurs envied in US

WEF: Singapore, Malaysia ahead of Thailand for tourists

When it comes to favourite destinations for tourists, Thailand is behind Singapore and Malaysia, according to a report of the World Economic Forum.

Foreign tourists take a rest on the lawn at Sanam Luang near the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, one of the favourite tourist destinations in Bangkok. (File photo by Pattarapong Chatpattarasill)

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report for 2013 placed Singapore on top of the countries in Southeast Asia and put Malaysia one spot above the kingdom.

It praised the friendly attitude of Thais towards foreign tourists and the solid performance of the private sector in Thailand to bolster tourism. But the industry was hampered by natural disasters, political unrest, the protection of property rights and red tape to start a business, noted the report, which is conducted every two years.

Thailand projects 24.5 million tourists this year, up from 22.3 million in 2012. The Tourism Department hopes 30 million visitors will come to the country in 2015.

Thailand ranked 43rd in the world’s rankings, dropping two notches from the last survey in 2011. It also was the ninth most popular country in the Asia-Pacific region also lead by Singapore.

“Singapore benefits from excellent transport infrastructure”, including ground and airport facilities, the report said.

Malaysia came second in Southeast Asia and eighth in the Asia-Pacific due to its low fuel prices, ticket taxes and airport charges, in addition to its competitive hotel rates.

Malaysia has ridden on its successful “Truly Asia” tourism campaign to lure tourists to the country.

Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia were behind Thailand respectively. Laos and Myanmar were not included in the report.

Natural resources and several World Heritage sites were among attractions enticing tourists to Indonesia, it said.

The report called the Philippines “the most improved country” among the Asia-Pacific nations, thanks to its aggressive spending on marketing and branding campaigns.

Improving protection of property rights, more openness toward foreign investment and fewer visa requirements for foreign visitors made the Philippines an up-and-coming country, although infrastructure remained a problem, it added.

Switzerland was in command as the world’s best destination since the last report due to its top hotel and other tourism facilities. “Switzerland’s infrastructure, especially ground transport, is among the best in the world,” it said.

Haiti was placed last among 140 countries surveyed in the report.

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WEF: Singapore, Malaysia ahead of Thailand for tourists

Following The Smart Money In Asia

Follow the money. It’s a old saying in investing that’s never made a lot of sense as it often means following the latest fad and ultimately buying high and selling low. So I’m going to propose an amendment and urge you to ”follow the smart money”. By this I mean that you should study what businessmen and investors with long, successful track records are doing with their money. And possibly invest alongside of them. Unlike most investors who feel they have to chase returns to get rich, these people are already wealthy and can pick and choose which asset classes to invest in. Given this freedom, they are often attracted to assets which offer value relative to other assets. It pays to know what these people are buying and selling.

Which brings me to an important development in Asia this year. It’s become clear that many real estate investors in Hong Kong and Singapore are cashing out of property. These investors are among Asia’s wealthiest and they’re starting to exit their favourite asset. If this implies that property in Hong Kong and Singapore is close to peaking, as I suspect it does, then it has negative implications for the economies and stock markets of both cities. On a longer time horizon though, a re-balancing away from property as the primary driver of wealth generation could well prove beneficial.

Investors selling property assets

I’ve been hearing a lot of anecdotes about insiders selling out of real estate, especially in Hong Kong. So an article in The Wall Street Journal this week entitled “Big players cash out of Hong Kong property” naturally caught my eye.

The article points to a wave of property initial public offerings (IPOs) about to hit the market. The sellers include New World Development, a large conglomerate, which is hoping to raise US$1 billion in an offering of some of its hotels. Another big Hong Kong conglomerate, Hopewell Holdings, wants to raise up to US$800 million in an offering of some of its (unspecified) properties. Also, Great Eagle Holdings, owner of The Langham Hotel chain, is hoping to raise US$800 million from selling off hotels in Hong Kong.

It comes after Hong Kong residential property prices increased 120% over the past four years, while commercial property prices rose 90% during the same period. It also follows the Hong Kong government introducing more draconian measures to limit property price rises. In February, the government increased stamp duty on residential property purchases by 2x to up to 8.5%.

Hong Kong isn’t alone in witnessing an increasing number of real estate IPOs. Singapore has seen a similar pattern this year. There’s more to come as Indonesian billionaires, the Riady family, is planning to raise US$800 million in an IPO of its Singapore hotels.

Similar to Hong Kong, Singapore has struggled to bring property prices under control. Recently, the government there introduced its seventh measure – including increased stamp duty and higher down payment requirements – in the past two years to curb price rises. Residential housing prices in Singapore have started to stabilise but they’re still up 59% since bottoming in the second quarter of 2009.

Reasons for cashing out

It’s not difficult to understand the motives behind the real estate investors who are selling. The property bubbles in Hong Kong and Singapore have been fuelled by three factors:

1. Money printed in the West has found a home in tangible growth assets in Asia. This has been particularly the case for Hong Kong, which pegs its currency to the U.S. dollar. This has resulted in Hong Kong money market rates closely tracking those of the U.S. even when domestic conditions diverge. This has meant significantly negative real rates (interest rates well below inflation), often a central driver to property bubbles.


2. Chinese growth has also aided the bubble. Chinese investors wanting to diversify their assets outside of China have found their way to Hong Kong, Singapore and, of course, many other places.


3. Governments, principally in Hong Kong, have been timid in addressing the price rises. Increasing social tensions, brought on by asset bubbles primarily benefiting the rich, have forced them to act more decisively.

The savvy real estate investors now cashing out know that the tailwinds which have driven property prices to their recent highs could easily turn in future. It’s clear that governments in Hong Kong and Singapore are becoming more concerned with property price rises and are willing to act to curb them. Also, quantitative easing (QE) won’t last forever. When QE goes, a key driving factor behind Asia’s property bubble will disappear. Finally, Chinese economic growth of +8% can’t be counted on from here on. Regular readers will know my bearish views on China’s economy in the near-term. The wealth investors exiting property may share the same concerns.

More importantly, these investors most probably realise that better value can be found elsewhere. All segments of property in Hong Kong and Singapore are undoubtedly expensive. The Economist magazine suggests they are the world’s second and third most expensive residential property markets on a price-to-rent basis, 69% and 57% overvalued versus long-term averages respectively.

In Hong Kong, the average residential property rental yield is close to 3%. Effectively, you’re paying a 33x price-to-earnings ratio for Hong Kong property. That compares to the 11x that you’ll pay for the average Hong Kong stock.

The investors exiting local property would also be able to see the much better rental yields offered outside of Asia, in the likes of the U.S.. There, they can get yields of +6% in a less frothy market and where debt is still very cheap.

Where they’ll put their money

The obvious question is: where will the real estate investors put their excess cash? The obvious answer is that they may switch from expensive property segments into less expensive ones in their home countries. Thus in Hong Kong, residential property appears among the more expensive. A switch into commercial property may make sense, particularly as upcoming supply is relatively limited. This switch is what property experts such as Colliers are betting on. This theory has some credibility. After all, property investors know property and switching between different segments would be within their comfort zones.

But I think any switch would be limited. As mentioned earlier, much of the selling by real estate insiders is in commercial property. They’re clearly not bullish on this segment either. Moreover, they’d know that if property rolls over on the residential side, it would impact the economy. Particularly in Hong Kong, where property contributes about 18% to GDP. Commercial property is very sensitive to economic conditions and would suffer if this scenario took place.

Another potential place to park the cash raised by real estate sales is in the stock market. Morgan Stanley strategist, Jonathan Garner, has taken a slightly different angle to raise the possibility of the Hang Seng Index (Hong Kong’s main stock index) reaching 50,000 by 2015 (it’s currently 22,300). Garner suggests that the Hang Seng Index has significantly lagged Hong Kong residential property prices, when historically they’ve been closely correlated (unsurprising given the importance of property to Hong Kong’s economy). He argues the stock market is due to play catch up.

My problem with this argument is that stocks may not play catch up, but property prices could fall instead. This would, inturn, heavily impact the stock market.

It depends on what you believe is more likely: a rise in stocks or a fall in property prices. My bet is on the latter and given the recent sales by real estate investors, they may well be in the same camp.

If not stocks or other property segments within their home countries, then where will the real estate investors put their money? I think overseas property markets are a fair bet.

My wife, who manages a portfolio of hotel assets for one of Australia’s largest property developers, tells me that Singapore companies have been large investors in Australia of late. Frasers Centrepoint is involved in building a massive US$2.1 billion mixed use development near the main train station in Sydney’s central business district. Recently, Ascendas Group bought a US$572 million hotel fund managed by Australia’s Mirvac Group. Far East Orchard is forming JVs to development its hotel business in Australia. And K-Reit has partnered with Mirvac in two office developments to date.

It’s clear form this that the trend of Asian real estate investors looking overseas for better opportunities has already begun. Australia is attractive to some given the low cost of debt and decent yield on offer. I would expect the U.S. and other less bubbly markets than Australia to attract more attention from investors in future.

What if property’s best days are behind it?

There’s a larger question that probably hasn’t been considered as much by the wealthy Asian property investors. And that is whether property in Hong Kong and Singapore may be close to topping out not just for a few years, but for a decade or more? Given the overvaluation of property in these markets, this possibility can’t be ruled out.

The reason that I raise this is because it would have far-reaching consequences. Asians are known to have an abiding love for property. Many suggest that it’s because property is tangible, unlike money that you put in the bank or into the stock market. I think that like the western world prior to 2008, property has realised incredible gains for investors in Hong Kong and Singapore over the past 40 years. And that’s what they’ve fallen in love with.

Consider that two-thirds of Hong Kong’s 50 wealthiest people have made their money primarily in real estate. It’s an extraordinary statistic.

No asset goes up forever though and property tends to move in very long cycles. What if we are close to the start of a major long-term downturn? (a downturn doesn’t have to mean declining prices as even stable prices will result large losses in inflation-adjusted terms). What if property isn’t the key driver to wealth in the likes of Hong Kong anymore? And what if the two-thirds of Hong Kong’s 50 wealthiest people from a real estate background, becomes one-third in ten year’s time?

Many people in Hong Kong and Singapore could never imagine some of these things happening. But I’d suggest they’re inevitable at some stage. It’s a matter of when, not if.

Such an occurrence would have some significant silver linings though. There’s little doubt that a declining or flat property market for a long period of time would have a significant impact on the economies of Hong Kong and Singapore. But I’d argue that it would be a healthy adjustment that may better balance their economies over time. Being over-reliant on one sector is never healthy.

Property’s downfall may also prove beneficial to other asset classes, such stocks and bonds. Knight Frank estimates that Asia’s wealthiest have 31% of their net worth tied up in property, compared to 16% in Europe, for instance. And they only have 15% of their wealth in stocks. A long-term shift towards stocks may make more sense, particularly when the economies of their home countries become less dependent on property asset appreciation.

Finally, less wealth coming from property would mean more wealth coming from other sectors. The wealthiest citizens may come more from manufacturing or other service industries. They’re likely to be less attracted to buying property than the current batch of real estate investors. That could prove a boon for stocks and the still under-developed Asian bond markets.

This post was originally published at Asia Confidential: http://asiaconf.com/

Following The Smart Money In Asia

Sharapova upbeat in Miami defeat

Maria Sharapova said she was relishing defending her French Open crown, after the in-form Russian star fell just short of a maiden Miami title.

World No. 2 Sharapova led by a set and a break before world No. 1 Serena Williams battled back, capturing the final 10 games on her way to a 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory in Saturday’s WTA Miami hardcourt final.

Williams won her sixth Miami crown and denied Sharapova her first Miami title, dropping the Russian to 0-5 in Miami finals. Williams has beaten Sharapova 11 times in a row and leads their overall rivalry 12-2.

But after running off 11 match wins in a row overall before the loss, including a victory at Indian Wells without Williams in the field, Sharapova has greater confidence in her game and her chances to defend at Roland Garros.

“When you experience such a nice moment in your career, to be able to come back there and to play on that court again where you lifted the trophy, won the match point, it’s always special and meaningful,” Sharapova said.

“I’ll treat it as any other title that maybe I haven’t won and really want to win because I would love to win it again.”

She had hoped to collect a first Miami crown but was pleased that she took a set off Williams for the first time since the 2008 quarter-finals on clay in Charleston, South Carolina.

“It’s tough to lose in the final stage because you’ve worked so hard to get there, no doubt about that,” Sharapova said.

“But it is a really nice stage to be at. It’s a nice opportunity that you’re giving yourself. The more that I give myself this opportunity, the better chance that I have of winning. That’s what I have to think about.

“Within a tournament there are a lot of ups and downs and I’m really happy with what I have been able to achieve in the last month.”

Williams praised Sharapova’s effort even as she avoided losing to the Russian for the first time since 2004.

“Maria played really the best I have seen her play,” Williams said. “She was moving unbelievable and she was hitting winners from everywhere.

“I feel like she lifted her level.”

Sharapova, however, saw Williams stretch her game when faced with the possibility of defeat.

“That’s why she’s No. 1 in the world. She’s really capable of doing that,” Sharapova said. “I was controlling a lot of the points in the first set and the beginning of the second. Then toward the end, I wasn’t there.

“I was losing a little bit of pace on my ball, which hurt me, and against a player like Serena, you can’t really do that.”

Williams will begin her clay season next week at Charleston, but unlike Sharapova she is not talking about taking the French Open trophy just yet.

“My goal is to win a match at Roland Garros this year, take it one at a time,” Williams said.

“I love the French Open. I love the clay. I love sliding. Hopefully I can just keep winning matches on clay. I’ll probably hit just a few tomorrow just to get sliding a little bit, because I have a match so soon.”

Four-time Grand Slam champion Sharapova, 25, is a semi-final loser at the Australian Open, Indian Wells champion and Miami runner-up this year just as she was in 2006 when she won her only US Open title.

“I like that,” Sharapova said. “Let’s write it down and put it in a pocket.”

Sharapova upbeat in Miami defeat

Singapore"s hunger for (some) babies

“The Golden Goose was prized for her eggs
That shone in brilliant gold
But there soon came a time she could make them no more
For her egg-making device was rusty and old“ 

Such is the advice from the Golden Goose, informing women that they will have more and more difficulty conceiving a child as they get older.

The Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz has something to say too – the moral of his story is that men are “biologically wired to like big butts because it indicates fertility”.

Don’t worry if you don’t recognise these stories from your childhood. No one does. These stories have been “remixed” as part of a campaign aimed at encouraging more Singaporeans to start families.

Known as “The Singaporean Fairytale“, the campaign was created by a group of university students and funded by Project Superglue, an initiative of Singapore’s National Family Council.

It’s not the first attempt to persuade reluctant Singaporeans to have babies, and it won’t be the last. Over the years the government has come up with a variety of schemes, from Baby Bonuses, to a government-linked dating network, to dating vouchers that friends and family can buy for their singleton loved ones.

These quixotic efforts have not succeeded in raising the dismal fertility rate – according to the CIA World Factbook, it is estimated to be at 0.79, far from the 2.1 seen as necessary to replenish the population.

But that doesn’t stop the government from trying, so much so that the call to raise the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has become somewhat of a national in-joke. During last year’s National Day, mint company Mentos released a song on YouTube encouraging Singaporeans to “get it on” and make babies after the National Day Parade. The song was picked up by overseas publications and reported as an official initiative – perhaps a sign that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between government campaigns and parodies?

The assumptions in the narrative

Campaigns like “The Singaporean Fairytale” are cringe-worthy at best. Beyond that, though, is a complete lack of acknowledgement that such campaigns only speak to a specific group of Singaporeans, marginalising and alienating the rest.

With sex between men still a crime – essentially making homosexuality illegal in Singapore – talk about marriage and starting families remains solely hetero-normative, assuming that the only “right” family is one where a man and a woman marry and have children. The LGBT community is still light-years away from being able to broach the subject of gay marriage, much less adoption.

There is an assumption that marriage is a natural stage of life to which all aspire. A postcard, sent out by the government-supported Social Development Network, played on the stages of evolution, depicting a baby growing into an adult before becoming part of a married couple. Such a narrative assumes that one is not fully accomplished, or even evolved, in life until one is part of a heterosexual marriage.

Young men and women are now being bombarded with “pro-family” messaging, cajoling and coaxing them into getting married and settling down rather than “waiting for all the stars to align”. A married life with children is portrayed as the ultimate desirable outcome, and singles are continually told to get out there and start looking for a spouse. A recent article commissioned by the Singapore Development Network and published in The Straits Times exhorted singles to ask themselves if they were “in circulation or vegetation”.

It’s like constantly being under the gaze of an overzealous aunt, eager to set you up on blind dates with anyone who catches her eye. Young Singaporeans are barely given the time and space to really think about what they want, and with a host of “pro-family” policies – priority in the public housing queue for married couples, parental leave being only applicable to couples who are lawfully married, etc – it sometimes seems like a choice between conforming or working doubly hard. Those who don’t fit into the social norm are more or less left out.

It can be said that every government in the world indulges in some form of social engineering, encouraging its population to work in one way or another. Yet when it comes to the issue of marriage and children, the Singapore government is neither subtle nor flexible; it simply plows on, throwing more money at the problem, launching more campaigns in its quest for more heterosexual nuclear families regardless of what Singaporeans want for themselves.

The ‘unwanted’ children?

The pro-family campaigns also fail to address one important and lesser-known fact: that the government has, for years, enacted policies to restrict the number of children from lower-income families.

The Home Ownership plus Education Scheme, more commonly known as the HOPE Scheme, provides support to poor families in the form of education bursaries, housing grants and mentoring services. However, such an arrangement comes with strings attached: families cannot have more than two children, or they will no longer be eligible for the scheme. Cash incentives are also given out to fund ligation or vasectomy procedures.

One may argue that it makes sense to discourage low-income families from having children they cannot afford, but this goes far beyond mere “discouraging”. The families are in no position to refuse the financial and material assistance offered by the government, and are therefore unlikely to have any other choice but to comply. In this way the HOPE Scheme does not discourage poor families from having less children – it coerces them into doing so.

When it comes to abortion, the same discrimination applies: while counselling – where women are shown ultrasound scans of the foetus in an effort to persuade them not to terminate their pregnancies – is mandatory for women with primary and/or secondary school education, it is not for women who have not finished primary school. These women are able to terminate their pregnancies right away.

There appears to be little justification for such double standards. It leaves one to assume that the children of women with higher education are more “precious” than that of less educated women – so much so that we would go to potentially unethical lengths to persuade an educated woman to keep her baby, but not the less educated.

Such policies reek of eugenicist logic, indicating that while Singapore’s government exhorts its citizens to get hitched and have babies, they are really only interested in babies from specific demographics.

Kirsten Han is a freelance journalist and blogger from Singapore, with an interest in human rights and social justice issues. A social media junkie through-and-through, she is currently a Master’s student in Journalism, Media and Communication at Cardiff University.

Follow her on Twitter: @kixes

1204

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Singapore"s hunger for (some) babies

Singapore"s hunger for (some) babies

“The Golden Goose was prized for her eggs
That shone in brilliant gold
But there soon came a time she could make them no more
For her egg-making device was rusty and old“ 

Such is the advice from the Golden Goose, informing women that they will have more and more difficulty conceiving a child as they get older.

The Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz has something to say too – the moral of his story is that men are “biologically wired to like big butts because it indicates fertility”.

Don’t worry if you don’t recognise these stories from your childhood. No one does. These stories have been “remixed” as part of a campaign aimed at encouraging more Singaporeans to start families.

Known as “The Singaporean Fairytale“, the campaign was created by a group of university students and funded by Project Superglue, an initiative of Singapore’s National Family Council.

It’s not the first attempt to persuade reluctant Singaporeans to have babies, and it won’t be the last. Over the years the government has come up with a variety of schemes, from Baby Bonuses, to a government-linked dating network, to dating vouchers that friends and family can buy for their singleton loved ones.

These quixotic efforts have not succeeded in raising the dismal fertility rate – according to the CIA World Factbook, it is estimated to be at 0.79, far from the 2.1 seen as necessary to replenish the population.

But that doesn’t stop the government from trying, so much so that the call to raise the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has become somewhat of a national in-joke. During last year’s National Day, mint company Mentos released a song on YouTube encouraging Singaporeans to “get it on” and make babies after the National Day Parade. The song was picked up by overseas publications and reported as an official initiative – perhaps a sign that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between government campaigns and parodies?

The assumptions in the narrative

Campaigns like “The Singaporean Fairytale” are cringe-worthy at best. Beyond that, though, is a complete lack of acknowledgement that such campaigns only speak to a specific group of Singaporeans, marginalising and alienating the rest.

With sex between men still a crime – essentially making homosexuality illegal in Singapore – talk about marriage and starting families remains solely hetero-normative, assuming that the only “right” family is one where a man and a woman marry and have children. The LGBT community is still light-years away from being able to broach the subject of gay marriage, much less adoption.

There is an assumption that marriage is a natural stage of life to which all aspire. A postcard, sent out by the government-supported Social Development Network, played on the stages of evolution, depicting a baby growing into an adult before becoming part of a married couple. Such a narrative assumes that one is not fully accomplished, or even evolved, in life until one is part of a heterosexual marriage.

Young men and women are now being bombarded with “pro-family” messaging, cajoling and coaxing them into getting married and settling down rather than “waiting for all the stars to align”. A married life with children is portrayed as the ultimate desirable outcome, and singles are continually told to get out there and start looking for a spouse. A recent article commissioned by the Singapore Development Network and published in The Straits Times exhorted singles to ask themselves if they were “in circulation or vegetation”.

It’s like constantly being under the gaze of an overzealous aunt, eager to set you up on blind dates with anyone who catches her eye. Young Singaporeans are barely given the time and space to really think about what they want, and with a host of “pro-family” policies – priority in the public housing queue for married couples, parental leave being only applicable to couples who are lawfully married, etc – it sometimes seems like a choice between conforming or working doubly hard. Those who don’t fit into the social norm are more or less left out.

It can be said that every government in the world indulges in some form of social engineering, encouraging its population to work in one way or another. Yet when it comes to the issue of marriage and children, the Singapore government is neither subtle nor flexible; it simply plows on, throwing more money at the problem, launching more campaigns in its quest for more heterosexual nuclear families regardless of what Singaporeans want for themselves.

The ‘unwanted’ children?

The pro-family campaigns also fail to address one important and lesser-known fact: that the government has, for years, enacted policies to restrict the number of children from lower-income families.

The Home Ownership plus Education Scheme, more commonly known as the HOPE Scheme, provides support to poor families in the form of education bursaries, housing grants and mentoring services. However, such an arrangement comes with strings attached: families cannot have more than two children, or they will no longer be eligible for the scheme. Cash incentives are also given out to fund ligation or vasectomy procedures.

One may argue that it makes sense to discourage low-income families from having children they cannot afford, but this goes far beyond mere “discouraging”. The families are in no position to refuse the financial and material assistance offered by the government, and are therefore unlikely to have any other choice but to comply. In this way the HOPE Scheme does not discourage poor families from having less children – it coerces them into doing so.

When it comes to abortion, the same discrimination applies: while counselling – where women are shown ultrasound scans of the foetus in an effort to persuade them not to terminate their pregnancies – is mandatory for women with primary and/or secondary school education, it is not for women who have not finished primary school. These women are able to terminate their pregnancies right away.

There appears to be little justification for such double standards. It leaves one to assume that the children of women with higher education are more “precious” than that of less educated women – so much so that we would go to potentially unethical lengths to persuade an educated woman to keep her baby, but not the less educated.

Such policies reek of eugenicist logic, indicating that while Singapore’s government exhorts its citizens to get hitched and have babies, they are really only interested in babies from specific demographics.

Kirsten Han is a freelance journalist and blogger from Singapore, with an interest in human rights and social justice issues. A social media junkie through-and-through, she is currently a Master’s student in Journalism, Media and Communication at Cardiff University.

Follow her on Twitter: @kixes

1204

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

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Singapore"s hunger for (some) babies