Singaporean real estate investors present in all market segments

Infrastructure development proves to be the first investment field chosen by Singaporean investors. SembCorp has been cited as the representative of the investment movement with the green industrial zone model.

The first construction work of SembCorp in Vietnam was the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park No. 1 (VSIP 1), which kicked off in 1996 in Thuan An district of Binh Duong province.

After that, three other industrial zone projects were carried out in succession, including VSIP II in Binh Duong City, VSIP III in Bac Ninh province, VSIP IV in Hai Phong City in the north, and VSIP in Quang Ngai province in the near future.

After successfully developing VSIP 1 which is purely an industrial zone, SembCorp made a wise decision when integrating urban areas into the other industrial zones VSIP II, VSIP III and VSIP IV. Fully exploiting the clients from the projects in the industrial zones, the accommodation projects of the investor always enjoy large custom, despite the ups and downs in the real estate market.

While SembCorp is considered the typical example of the first generation of Singaporean investors in Vietnam, CapitaLand could be the representative of the second generation, according to Dau tu.

The second-generation investors arrived in Vietnam in late 1990s, targeting the high end hotel market segment. With the presence of CapitaLand, a lot of hotel projects have been developed, including Hanoi Tower, Sofitel Plaza Hanoi, InterContinental Hanoi Westlake and Somerset hotels in Hanoi and HCM City.

The 5-star hotels in Hanoi such as Hanoi Tower or Sofitel Plaza are considered as the foundation laid for the development of the hotel market segment in Vietnam in early 2000. The hotels witnessed a prosperous period in 2002-2009, when foreign businesspeople flocked to Vietnam to seek investment opportunities in the Vietnam’s economic boom.

CapitaLand has also pushed up the development of the high end hotel market when setting up new standards such as "5 star++” with its InterContinental Hanoi Westlake or Somerset projects, which can satisfy the increasingly high requirements of guests.

After the great success in the high end hotel sector, CapitaLand has jumped into a new market segment. A lot of residential quarter and urban area projects have been arisen with CapitaLand’s investment, including Mulberyland in Ha Dong district, or The Vista in HCM City.

Another eminent Singaporean real estate developer – Keppel Land – has also reaped fruits on the Vietnamese market when developing a series of accommodation projects, including Riviera Point in district 7 in HCM City, Saigon centre building in district 1, Estella high end apartment bloc in district 2.

To date, Keppel Land has run 18 projects in Vietnam with the total registered investment capital of nearly two billion dollars, mostly in the housing and high end apartment market segment.

Meanwhile, at a recent working session with the leaders of the Ministry of Construction, President of Keppel Land Singapore Lee Boon Yang expressed his intention to develop the projects on building residential quarters for low income earners in the next 5-10 years.

After the successes in the infrastructure and urban area development sector, Banyan Tree Group has recently decided to jump into the resort real estate sector, when announcing the development of the Laguna ecotourism complex at Lang Co Bay in Thua Thien-Hue province. The developer hopes to turn the land into a Phuket in Vietnam.

Dien dan doanh nghiep quoted Phan Huu Thang, now director of the Foreign Investment Studies centre as saying that Singapore has always been one of the biggest foreign investors in Vietnam. Since 1990s, Singaporean investors have invested over 5 billion dollars in the real estate sector in Vietnam.