Rich Indonesians Snap Up Singaporean Flats
Contributed by Our Correspondent
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=4430
Extract
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/kpk-urges-ratification-of-singapore-extradition-pact/367783
Extract
According to a report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini in 2006, there were about 18,000 Indonesian millionaires living in Singapore with a total of $87 billion in wealth.
Contributed by Our Correspondent
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=4430
Extract
A safe haven in case there’s trouble, either from ethnic strife – or the law
Driven by uncertainty over potential racial violence, and lured by opaque banking laws to keep out prying eyes, Singapore remains the favorite bolt-hole for Indonesia’s rich, who are buying up expensive new flats about as fast as they come onto the market.
Thomas Tan, director for residential marketing at Raffles Quay Asset Management, told local reporters earlier this week that 30 percent of the units that went on sale for the new 221 units of the 66-story Marina Bay Suites went to Indonesians. Of the 155-odd units sold so far, about half have been sold to foreigners including Malaysians and Mainland Chinese, although Indonesians represent the biggest percentage.
Indonesia “is one of our key markets, and we continue to see strong demand,” Tan told local media in Jakarta. In 2011, Indonesians bought 1,714 properties in Singapore, averaging between US$1 million and US$5 million
in price. In total, Indonesians were estimated to have spent US$165 million on Singaporean property in 2011.
Singapore has always been a port in a storm for Indonesian tycoons and lesser satraps a step ahead of the law or sporadic ethnic hostility, usually directed at ethnic Chinese. There are estimated to be about 70,000 US dollar millionaires living in Singapore, with rich Indonesians comprising a significant share of them.
As long ago as 2007, 18,000 Indonesians described as “rich” were living in the Lion City, worth a combined total of US$87 billion – more than Indonesia’s entire annual government budget. At the time it included 200 debtors who owed money to the state and who had been hiding there since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998.
Among them were crooked Indonesian bankers who plundered more than US$13.5 billion from the Indonesian central bank's recapitalization funds to try to put 48 ailing banks back together and fled for the island republic. They moved most of the money across the strait, where Singapore’s banking laws are among the world’s most impregnable.
Indonesia has made half-hearted attempts to get the bankers and the money back, to no avail.
Driven by uncertainty over potential racial violence, and lured by opaque banking laws to keep out prying eyes, Singapore remains the favorite bolt-hole for Indonesia’s rich, who are buying up expensive new flats about as fast as they come onto the market.
Thomas Tan, director for residential marketing at Raffles Quay Asset Management, told local reporters earlier this week that 30 percent of the units that went on sale for the new 221 units of the 66-story Marina Bay Suites went to Indonesians. Of the 155-odd units sold so far, about half have been sold to foreigners including Malaysians and Mainland Chinese, although Indonesians represent the biggest percentage.
Indonesia “is one of our key markets, and we continue to see strong demand,” Tan told local media in Jakarta. In 2011, Indonesians bought 1,714 properties in Singapore, averaging between US$1 million and US$5 million
in price. In total, Indonesians were estimated to have spent US$165 million on Singaporean property in 2011.
Singapore has always been a port in a storm for Indonesian tycoons and lesser satraps a step ahead of the law or sporadic ethnic hostility, usually directed at ethnic Chinese. There are estimated to be about 70,000 US dollar millionaires living in Singapore, with rich Indonesians comprising a significant share of them.
As long ago as 2007, 18,000 Indonesians described as “rich” were living in the Lion City, worth a combined total of US$87 billion – more than Indonesia’s entire annual government budget. At the time it included 200 debtors who owed money to the state and who had been hiding there since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998.
Among them were crooked Indonesian bankers who plundered more than US$13.5 billion from the Indonesian central bank's recapitalization funds to try to put 48 ailing banks back together and fled for the island republic. They moved most of the money across the strait, where Singapore’s banking laws are among the world’s most impregnable.
Indonesia has made half-hearted attempts to get the bankers and the money back, to no avail.
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/kpk-urges-ratification-of-singapore-extradition-pact/367783
Extract
According to a report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini in 2006, there were about 18,000 Indonesian millionaires living in Singapore with a total of $87 billion in wealth.
Also had a classmate who's father worked at Pertamina.
