News Highlights Friday 15 February 2008

The Straits Times, P1

S’pore cuts growth foreceast to 4% to 6%
Singapore has lowered its economic growth forecast for the year but also tipped that consumer prices are expected to rise faster than previously thought. Concern over a possible United States recession led the Government to trim its growth forecast from an earlier estimate of 4.5 to 6.5% to between 4 and 6%. Last year, the economy expended by 7.7%. Its inflation estimate has gone the other way with prices now tipped to rise on average between 4.5 and 5.5%, up from a three-month-old forecast of between 3.5% and 4.5%. Economists said the Government may announce today a more generous Budget to help low-income earners cope with escalating living costs.


The Straits Times, H18

Making S’pore a test bed for products of the future
The long-running programme to entice overseas businesses to locate their regional bases in Singapore is receiving a strategic boost. A new initiative developed by the Economic Development Board (EDB) builds on the work of the past 20 years but encompasses an approach that could bring double the benefits. Called Future.Singapore, it will focus on business themes in which Singapore is seeking solutions, allowing the country itself to be used as a working model and test bed. This added benefit will come on top of the traditional foreign investment flows into the country, said EDB chairman Lim Siong Guan. He identified three new business themes under the new initiative: urban solutions; wellness, ageing and health care; and lifestyle products and services.


The Business Times, P9

Playfair Rd site gets bullish top bid of $142 psf ppr
A 60-year leasehold industrial site at Playfair Road has attracted a top bid of $142 psf ppr from Sim Lian Development unit Trio Link Development – a record price for such a site in the Ubi/Paya Lebar/Eunos area. The tender for the 92,870 sq ft reserve-list plot attracted 12 bids, reflecting growing interest in industrial property as it comes into play amid the breather in residential and office values, say Colliers International director (industrial) Tan Boon Leong. Sim Lian’s top bid of $33 million, or $142.13 psf ppr, was a huge 63% above the next highest bid of $20.23 million, or $87.13 psf ppr, by Orion-Three Development. The eight-storey property has 552 strata-titled units. Sim Lian is developing it on a 60-year leasehold site it won at a state tender in 2006.


The Business Times

Govt raises inflation forecast, sees peak in H1
Forecast upped to 4.5-5.5% as S'pore feels effect of rising food and oil prices


The Straits Times 12

sites set aside for new hotels to ease room crunch
12,000 new rooms to be added to current 37,000


The Straits Times

Reality's a hard taskmaster
(Edited excerpts of MM Lee's interview by UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave, Part 2)