The destination
Every year study association SerVicE organizes an interesting study trip abroad. Recent years cities like New York, Toronto, Hong Kong and Seoul were visited and this year the travel committee managed to find another interesting destination. The current situation in the Netherlands helped to determine a destination, since the city should provide insight into the differences or similarities with various characteristics of the Netherlands. A high population density, the presence of a logistic transit hub for Europe (Rotterdam’s harbor), stimulation of the knowledge economy, recent departure of highly educated young people, influences of the recession of the economy and an ageing population characterize the Netherlands nowadays. For students it is very interesting to see how these developments are handled abroad. Because of the following reasons, Singapore was chosen as the most interesting destination:
- With a surface area of 697 square kilometers (half of the surface area of the province Utrecht), Singapore is the smallest country in Southeast Asia. At the moment, it has a population of 5.08 million people. This gives Singapore an extremely high population density. (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2010)
- As one of four Asian Dragons, Singapore experienced a consistently high economic growth since the sixties of last century. Over the past twenty years, the average increase of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Singapore was 7.58% per year. (TradingEconomics, 2010)
- Singapore is the logistic transit hub for Southeast Asia, and currently owns the second largest harbor in the world with a total transfer in 2010 of 28.4 million containers. It only trails Shanghai which has a total transfer of 29.0 million containers. (DTZ Singapore, 2011)
- Singapore is known for his highly developed educational system that has led to an extensive knowledge economy and a growing number of high educated people moving to Singapore. The National University of Singapore is number 31 on the list of best universities in the world. (World University Rankings, 2010)
- Lastly, Singapore is a top location for businesses to settle in Asia. At the moment, the Central Business District (CBD) consist of 325,000 square meters of ‘Grade A’ office space, which will be increased with 678,000 square meters of ‘Grade A’ office space between 2010 and 2012, resulting in tripling of the total ‘Grade A’ office space in the CBD. (Jones LangLaSalle, 2010)
Focus of the travel committee
As the destination was chosen, the travel committee started composing a varied program for the trip. Of course the students should be acquainted with the culture of the country and city, but the educational character of the trip was especially important. For this reason, four case studies were composed. Three of them focused on the real estate market in Singapore, in particular the office, logistic and residential real estate market. The last case study was a ‘question & answer’ with Jim Rogers. The case studies fit the convergent nature of the trip. The week would start with a general impression of the property market of Singapore, during the middle of the week the focus would shift towards the case studies and at the end of the week key projects would be visited. This provides a clear structure of information and therefore enhances the learning process for the students. Eventually, we, as a travel committee, believe we have constructed a very interesting and high quality program, which we are very proud of!
Formal week
After a long journey by plane everybody arrived tired but enthusiastic in Singapore. We were very curious what the city would be like and travelling by MRT (Mass Rapid Transport; the subway in Singapore) from the airport to our hostel gave us a quick preview of the city, for it was partially above the ground. Big apartment buildings with up to forty levels of condominiums could be spotted, and this was just in the suburbs! We explored the different urban areas like Little India and Chinatown, with its characteristic picturesque buildings in Chinese style, and visited some landmark building as well. ‘The Pinnacle’ in Chinatown for example are seven 50-storey residential towers connected by the world’s two longest sky gardens of 500 meters on the 26th and 50th floor. This project is commissioned by the Housing Development Board (HDB) which has developed more than 80 percent of all housing in Singapore. ‘The Pinnacle’ was a redevelopment idea of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the HDB. This contrast on the first day clarified what kind of city we were in: a city with an enormous diversity of cultures and buildings. Later on that day, we visited the Central Business District which forms the skyline of the city. A walk along the Marina Bay – with its boulevard, many shopping malls, the Esplanade (concert hall and theatre) with its impressing shapes and of course the Marina Bay Sands project – offered a good view of the skyline of the city. Especially by night the view was spectacular as we had dinner on the Marina Bay boulevard.
The current success of Singapore was masterminded by former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who fought for the independence of Singapore from Malaysia and whose party lead (and still leads) Singapore from 1959 to 1990. His policy in these thirty years had three major concerns: national security, the economy, and social issues. This has had its effect on the real estate in Singapore. The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), which we visited the next day, is the urban planning authority in Singapore. Since almost all the land in Singapore is property of the government and given out with a 99 year lease contract, the URA plays a big role in the current mapping of the city. We visited the URA gallery, which gave us a good insight in the development of Singapore as a ’liveable city’. The limited space is planned with much care with a focus on mixed use developments, green areas (on the ground as well as sky gardens) and proper transportation. Afterwards we visited the Housing Development Board (HDB). This is institution was founded by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, and provides housing to the majority of the population of Singapore. Only the middle-class and high-class residents live in commercial condominiums. 96 percent of the condominiums of the HDB are owned by its residents, so very less people live in rented condominiums. The government provides their inhabitants with affordable housing. The condominiums are reasonable priced and the inhabitants save 20 percent of their income monthly in a fund which is managed by the government. This fund is an obliged saving system which makes it easier for people to buy their own property since they are only allowed to use the fund to buy property. Another remarkable fact is that for every HDB-flat there is a ratio concerning the partition of different races in every flat. The government wants to make sure that the composition of every HDB-flat is a reflection of the total population.
On Tuesday we visited KeppelLand, one of the three largest Singaporean commercial developers. In a presentation we learned about KeppelLand and the fact that it is part of an enormous firm named Keppel Corporation with different sections in Offshore & Marine, Infrastructure, Property and Investment. After the presentation we visited the Ocean Financial Centre, which was completed in March 2011. This is a sustainable redevelopment in the heart of the CBD, where two old office buildings were demolished and on the site one new office is developed. The building had many green features like solar panels, a paper recycling sytem, a water collection system, a green wall and a roof that is almost entirely (74.1 percent) covered with green. In the afternoon we went to Keppel Bay, a bay where the land is owned by Keppel Corporation. This is due to the history of the company that goes back to the British colonial time, when Keppel Corporation already existed. Here we had a tour at ‘Reflections’, an enormous housing project for the middle-class and high-class. Especially the architecture of the towers was impressing, and models of the surrounding development were watched in awe. In the evening we had an appointment with the Dutch ambassador. In a ‘Question and Answer’ the differences and similarities of Singapore with the Netherlands were clarified.
On Wednesday, a visit to the National University of Singapore was planned. We started with a lecture of Dr. Lim Lan Yuan about the real estate market of Singapore. After a tour around the campus we had a ‘Question and Answer’ with Jim Rogers. In couples, eight students prepared four different hypotheses in the interest field of Jim Rogers, a colorful American investor and an outspoken proponent of the free market. We were very glad we had the opportunity to arrange an appointment with him, and the students could enjoy themselves by making challenging hypotheses on for example commodities, the difference between China and Europa, the gold-standard and totalitarian states like Singapore. They challenged Jim Rogers to make interesting statements, which gave enough information for the students to analyze their hypotheses. This ‘Question and Answer’ with Jim Rogers provided the input for the study cases of these eight students.
On Thursday we had an ‘international consultancy day’ where we visited DTZ, ING and Cushman & Wakefield, which provided the input for respectively the logistic, residential and office study case. It was interesting to see these different companies and their offices. Also the knowledge which was shared was very helpful for our study cases. On Thursday night we met the ambassador (and eight hundred other Dutchmen) again because we were invited to the Queens day party, organized by the Dutch Embassy. On Queens day we celebrate the birth day of our queen, and the Dutch Embassy organized a celebration. Formally dressed people, good music, Dutch delicacies like ‘bitterballen’, ‘haring’, ‘poffertjes’ and ‘stroopwafelijs’, and Heineken beer made clear we were at a typical Dutch Queens day celebration. We met many Dutch people living and working in Singapore and it was very interesting to get to know their view on the differences and similarities of Singapore and the Netherlands.
During our last formal day we visited to Philips Singapore. Philips was originally founded in Eindhoven, so we were very interested why Philips was located in Singapore. It turned out that Philips was established in Singapore since 1951 due to Singapore’s strategic location. With the independence of Singapore and the growing educational level of the population the establishment developed into the central headquarter in Southeast Asia. In the afternoon we had a tour at Marina Bay Sands, an enormous project consisting of three hotel towers (with 2,561 hotel rooms), the first casino in Singapore (consisting of 500 tables and 1,600 slot machines), shopping malls, a conference centre (120,000 square meters), two theatres and an art and technology museum. With total costs for this project estimated at 8 billion Singaporean dollars (4.5 billion euro), it was one of the most expensive building projects in the world and the current eye catcher of the skyline of Singapore. The most striking of the project is the 340 meter-long sky park on the roof of the three towers. It even houses an infinity pool, which offers a great view of the Marina Bay.
Informal end
Of course we also planned some informal activities for the students. On our day of arrival we visited Sentosa Island, an island founded by land reclamation and totally planned for recreational purposes. It has its own casino (the second of Singapore, after Marina Bay Sands), Universal Studios movie theme park, beach and beach clubs. During the formal week we were also busy exploring the nightlife of Singapore. We went to Clarke Quay – an area near the CBD where many clubs and restaurants are located – where we had dinner and went clubbing. We also visited St. James Powerstation, an old industrial building redeveloped in five different clubs integrated in one building. And on Saturday night we partied in the Zouk, ranked 9th in the top 100 clubs of the world in 2011. Besides the nightlife of Singapore we also introduced the students with the culture of Singapore. The different Buddhist and Hindu temples, Christian churches and Islamic mosques gave a good view of the diversity of Singapore’s population. Other cultural activities during this weekend were a visit to the National Musuem of Singapore, located in an outstanding preserved British colonial building, and a visit to a horseracing stadium. This was a completely new experience for us, and we were baffled by the enormous number of people gambling and encouraging their favorite horse. Furthermore, we visited the Singapore Night Safari on Friday night, the only Night Safari in the world. After accepting the fact of mosquitoes would be biting us, we were able to spot a lot of different animals in the night. This was very intriguing since that’s the time of the day these animals are the most active! And even on our day of departure, we had a tour at the Marina Barrage area. This side of the Marina bay is currently in development in order to become a ‘city garden’, very similar to the Central Park in New York. Since the Marina Barrage is a dam, us Dutchmen had to take a look as experts in ‘water engineering’.
In conclusion
What we learn from this study trip: Singapore is a fantastic city. From our field of interest it was an overwhelming experience because of the tremendous pace buildings are developed in Singapore. A pace we in the Netherlands only can dream of! Enormous construction projects where only the sky is the limit are realized, without losing sight of the financial feasibility and social engagement. Not even to mention the cultural diversity of the country with many different races and religions. Add to this the great mentality, helpfulness and friendliness of the people and it seems clear that our visit to Singapore was a memorable one.
Gijs Kant
Chairman Travel Committee for SerVicE 2010-2011