HONG KONG: Mainland Chinese investors are scouring Hong Kong's commercial property market for bargains after prices plunged 30 per cent, signalling a new wave of demand following anti-government protests last year that kept a lid on investment activity.
Property agents expect the influx of Chinese capital, which has helped Hong Kong become one of the world's most expensive property markets, can once again prop up the sector as China recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and stands ready to deploy liquidity.
In August alone, mainland buyers snapped up at least two office towers and one hotel building worth HK$4 billion (US$516 million) in total, according to agents and filings.
"A majority of recent large-value building deals were bought by Chinese investors; their number has really grown in the third quarter," said Reeves Yan, head of capital markets at CBRE Hong Kong.
"They're looking for bargains ... and they're confident in Hong Kong in the long term."
The pick-up in demand coincides with the imposition of a national security law in Hong Kong on Jun 30, which authorities in Beijing and the financial centre have said is necessary to ensure its stability and prosperity.
"We expect to see more mainland investors coming to buy land," said Dennis Cheng, senior sales director at Ricacorp (CIR) Properties.
"If Hong Kong gets more stable in the next few months after the national security law, we expect more mainland companies to open branches here, and that will help the office sector to recover."
The move by Chinese investors is in stark contrast to foreign investors, who are staying away due to growing concerns over the city's future. Critics of the legislation say it has pushed the former British colony onto a more authoritarian path following months of sometimes violent democracy protests last year.
"Foreign investors are still absent. I spoke to two foreign funds recently who said they won't consider Hong Kong at the moment because the political risks are relatively high now," said Daniel Wong, CEO of Midland IC&I.
In July, state-owned China Mobile and a consortium led by Chinese major developer Vanke bought one land parcel each for HK$5.6 billion and HK$3.7 billion, respectively. They were the first mainland Chinese companies to win public tenders since January.
Colliers says it expected mainland capital will become "the next wave of demand" in the Hong Kong leasing and investment markets, supported by cross-border financial initiatives in stock and wealth management, and the city's large capital pool for fund-raising.
China called on its biggest state firms to take a more active role in Hong Kong, including stepping up investment and asserting more control of companies to help cool last year's political crisis, Reuters reported last year.
It is unclear, however, whether the latest spike in investment is being driven by Beijing, because while some of the buyers are government-backed, many of them are private investors.
But the city recorded a plunge in deal volume amid the unrest and the pandemic and has yet to witness a rise in mainland investments comparable to a few years ago.
"There are early signs of mainland Chinese demand returning," Colliers said in a recent note.
Chinese investment accounted for 39 per cent of total commercial real estate transactions in Hong Kong so far this year, up from 19 per cent for the whole of 2019, Colliers said.
CBRE's Yan expects the commercial property market to bottom-out soon as deal volumes accelerate in the fourth quarter. He cautioned, however, that prices of office and retail shops will remain under pressure for another 12-18 months as the economy slowly recovers.
SINGAPORE - The blue mask is a common sight these days but on Thursday (Aug 27) morning, it was spotted on a Cargolux Airlines Boeing 747-8 at Changi Airport.
Flight CLX 7952 landed in Singapore "masked up", four months after mask-faysal testing was made compulsory for those here on April 14 to combat the spread of Covid-19.
The special livery covers the nose of the plane with straps highlighting a message appropriate to current times: "Not without my mask."
It is the first time a "masked" plane has landed in Changi, said Changi Airport Group.
The Luxembourg-based cargo airline had decided on a new paint job following a scheduled maintenance check in Taipei.
It made a stopover in Singapore at 4.20am on Aug 27 before heading to Luxembourg via Baku, Azerbaijan.
Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Deputy Prime Minister François Bausch were onsite to greet the plane and its crew when it landed in Luxembourg Airport on Aug 27 afternoon local time.
In a statement, Cargolux said that the plane's livery is meant to show that the airline "embraces the Luxembourg government's campaign to promote the use of face masks in the current environment".
The plane returned to Singapore on Aug 28 at about 9pm.
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MELBOURNE: Which organisations would you look to as allies in the fight against climate change?
Climate activist groups, foundations and even a smattering of corporates involved in sustainability might come to mind.
But here’s some real food for thought: How about militaries?
The ongoing fight against COVID-19 has made it seem like a lifetime ago that Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen unveiled a slew of green measures that the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) will be adopting to do its bit for climate change in Parliament in March.
But these bold plans augur well for a green future for these men in green. The initiatives announced range from simple waste-reduction measures including recycling food waste into energy to larger, ambitious plans that seek to replace the SAF’s 400 administrative vehicles with hybrid and eventually electric models to reduce carbon emissions.
The Republic of Singapore Navy is also looking at hybrid propulsion for its future ships, which according to Dr Ng has the added bonus of improved energy efficiency in addition to reducing their carbon footprint.
The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) is also doing its bit, with a newly-built hangar at Changi East Air Base for its Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport set to be the first net-positive energy aircraft hangar in Singapore.
According to MINDEF, solar panels on the roof of the new hangar can generate up to 1.225 MWh of electricity per year, or 30 per cent more electricity than it consumes. The additional energy generated will then be directed to other buildings the air base to be used.
Other features of the hangar include the use of sustainable materials in its construction, a rainwater harvesting system, the use of natural ventilation and energy-efficient LED lighting.
The hangar, which was designed by the Defence Science and Technology Agency, has won the Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark Platinum (Positive Energy) award for its green features.
The hangar uses energy-efficient lighting. (Photo: Aqil Haziq Mahmud)
The hangar will be one of several such “green” buildings MINDEF has already in service, with more on the way. The new hangar at Changi East follows an earlier hangar at Paya Lebar, which won the Green Mark Gold Plus award in 2015.
This is the second highest tier of the award. One of the criteria for winning includes a requirement to achieve at least 25 per cent savings in utilities compared to a “non-green” equivalent.
These initiatives unveiled by MINDEF are its contribution to a whole-of-government plan to go green. As Dr Ng said in his speech, the threat of climate change is some “which the SAF may not be primarily responsible, but must join in the efforts (to combat) for Singapore’s security and safety”.
Such efforts illustrate the fact the militaries do not exist in a vacuum, and will have to do their fair share of meeting national objectives.
Singapore has previously pledged to reduce its absolute carbon emission levels after 2030 and halve that by 2050.
It is also worth noting Singapore’s carbon footprint is big for its size, with estimates that it contributes 0.11 per cent of global emissions despite having just 0.0005 per cent of the world’s land.
While it is hard to see how Singapore can reduce its dependence on heavy industries that contribute the majority of the nation’s greenhouse gases, including the oil and gas industry, there is no question Singapore sees the need to reduce its carbon footprint as a responsible global stakeholder, with everyone doing their bit.
Using renewable energy sources such as solar power would be a good place to start.
Given 95 per cent of Singapore’s electricity is generated by natural gas-fired powered stations, there is room to embrace the use of solar and other forms of renewable energy to power electrical needs, with new targets to increase installed solar capacity by more than seven times from current levels to reach 2 gigawatt-peak by 2030.
Solar panels are seen here on the rooftop of an office building in Singapore. (File photo: AFP/Roslan Rahman)
But the SAF has a large land footprint too and knows it can do better with designing bases and camps. In addition to the RSAF’s green hangars, Dr Ng also revealed that MINDEF has commissioned net zero energy buildings at Kranji and Seletar Camps, and by the end of this financial year, the buildings in 12 SAF camps will be equipped with solar panels.
These initiatives will be a start to making a dent in Singapore’s carbon emissions, a whopping 52.5 million tonnes in 2017 alone.
For militaries, learning how to live “off the (electrical) grid” is a good thing. During times of conflict, national disaster, or even a cyberattack, access to the national electrical grid or fuel could be affected while the SAF must still perform its duties.
The American military learnt this during its time in Iraq and Afghanistan, when it found embracing the use of solar to power its sometimes-isolated bases reduced its dependence on diesel which reduced the risk of attack to road convoys delivering the fuel.
A similar conundrum could be faced by Singapore during an emergency. In 2018, Singapore imported 9.96 million tonnes of oil equivalent of natural gas, of which 71.4 per cent was piped in from Indonesia and Malaysia.
However, supply from the former is due to end in 2023, and the use of LNG brought in by ships is expected to increase in proportion to 50 per cent by the middle of this decade.
Given the well-known vulnerability of the sea lines of communications around Singapore, it is prudent to assume an uninterrupted supply of fuel such as LNG and petroleum products cannot be guaranteed in a crisis, and the SAF, like all Singaporeans, cannot assume that unfettered access to electricity or fuel in tough times.
MORE MILITARIES GOING GREEN
The push to go green is not limited to Singapore’s military. Several military leaders have gone on record as saying the climate change is the biggest challenge their forces will face or a variation thereof, including the US and Australia, whose national governments have on occasion been susceptible to bouts of climate scepticism or outright denialism.
Australian firefighters are seen as they try to protect homes around Charmhaven, New South Wales, from wildfires. (Photo: Twitter@NSWRFS via AP)
Most of these concerns are driven by the calculation of the rising frequency and intensity of natural disasters armed forces have to respond to.
Australia’s Chief of Defence Force General Angus Campbell noted in 2019 that Australia’s military capabilities could be stretched if it had to undertake more humanitarian relief efforts as a result of climate change causing more frequent and damaging natural disasters.
The Australian military deployed 3,000 personnel to support the relief effort following a cyclone in the north of the country earlier that year, double the number of troops it had in Afghanistan at the height of Australia’s combat deployment in support of coalition forces.
There is also no doubt that the sustainability of continuing a “business as usual” approach to the use of fossil fuels and accompanying carbon emissions is being questioned by militaries worldwide, with a realisation something has to change.
According to a 2017 report by the US Department of Defense, the US military nearly doubled its renewable power generation between 2011 and 2015, to 10,534 billion British thermal units, or enough to power about 286,000 average American homes.
The US military also nearly tripled the number of individual renewable energy programmes during this period to almost 1,400, most of these occurring on American military bases.
A good example of this is Fort Hood in Texas, the US military’s biggest base on American soil.
The sprawling base reported in 2017 it had increased its use of renewable energy vis-à-vis fossil fuels, with 63,000 solar panels and off-base wind turbines providing almost half of its power needs, compared to just 23 per cent in 2015. The US Army estimates this will reap more than US$100 million (S$138.87 million) in savings over 30 years.
In Asia, South Korea’s military is also doing the same thing with the aim of increasing its use of renewable energy sources to 25 per cent by 2030, which is higher than the government's goal of 20 percent for the country as a whole.
The renewable energy will come from photovoltaic panels in bases, military land and rooftops of other installations, while some barracks will be fitted with geothermal cooling and heating system.
There is also a continuing effort worldwide to experiment with the use of biofuels on military ships and aircraft, to find a right blend that is sustainable yet without negatively affecting the performance of the engines.
An RSAF A330 multi-role tanker transport refuelling an F-16 during Exercise Forging Sabre in US. (Photo: MINDEF)
As a whole, militaries tend to be one of the more significant contributors to emissions through burning of fossil fuels, yet are potentially some of the worst-affected by an interruption to supply.
As solar power becomes more affordable and battery storage technologies used to store power from renewable sources improve, the trend of militaries going green will only accelerate, which is a positive development to be welcomed.
Mike Yeo is the Asia reporter for US-based defence publication Defense News.
HONG KONG: A Hong Kong pro-democracy union of healthcare workers and several activists, including Joshua Wong, called on Sunday (Aug 30) for a boycott of the government's universal coronavirus testing plan, in which medical staff from mainland China are set to assist.
From Tuesday, a 60-strong mainland team is due to conduct tests in the first direct help from China's health officials for the city as it battles the pandemic.
But the effort comes at a sensitive time for the former British colony, as anxiety runs high over what many of its 7.5 million residents see as Beijing's efforts to rein in their freedoms, in particular a national security law imposed in June.
The government has also postponed September's legislative elections by a year, citing risks to public health and dealing a blow to the pro-democracy opposition camp, which had hoped for a historic majority win after overwhelming success in lower-level elections last year.
The Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, formed during last year's protests with 20,000 members, said universal testing was not an efficient use of resources and urged focused tests instead.
"It is clear to see that the government has one and only one goal ... to use the pandemic to achieve their own political aims," its leader Winnie Yu told a joint news conference with activists.
"They shall do whatever they can to please the central government of China, even if it means placing politics above all things else."
Wong said a full closure of the border would be a better measure than the government plan, adding, "It's like having a pregnancy test without having birth control."
The city's Beijing-backed chief executive, Carrie Lam, has hit back at critics of the initiative, dismissing their attempt to "smear the central government".
Chinese state media have denounced the critics as ungrateful, while China’s Hong Kong Liaison Office in the financial hub has said in a statement it was "shocking" that people could question the plan.
It comes at a time when new daily infections have fallen substantially, to figures in the single digits or low double digits, from three digits during a surge a few weeks ago. The tally rose to 4,801 with 15 more cases reported on Sunday.
Police also dispersed a protest by dozens of activists in a shopping mall roughly a year since some of the most violent clashes in a metro station in train carriages, citing a COVID-19 precaution limiting gatherings to two.
SINGAPORE - The blue mask is a common sight these days but on Thursday (Aug 27) morning, it was spotted on a Cargolux Airlines Boeing 747-8 at Changi Airport.
Flight CLX 7952 landed in Singapore "masked up", four months after mask-wearing was made compulsory for those here on April 14 to combat the spread of Covid-19.
The special livery covers the nose of the plane with straps highlighting a message appropriate to current times: "Not without my mask."
It is the first time a "masked" plane has landed in Changi, said Changi Airport Group.
The Luxembourg-based cargo airline had decided on a new paint job following a scheduled maintenance check in Taipei.
It made a stopover in Singapore at 4.20am on Aug 27 before heading to Luxembourg via Baku, Azerbaijan.
Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Deputy Prime Minister François Bausch were onsite to greet the plane and its crew when it landed in Luxembourg Airport on Aug 27 afternoon local time.
In a statement, Cargolux said that the plane's livery is meant to show that the airline "embraces the Luxembourg government's campaign to promote the use of face masks in the current environment".
The plane returned to Singapore on Aug 28 at about 9pm.
NEW DELHI: India recorded the world's highest single-day rise of COVID-19 cases on Sunday (Aug 30) with 78,761 new infections.
The spike in new cases, the highest reported by any nation since the pandemic began, surpassed a Jul 17 figure of 77,638 in the United States according to an AFP tally.
India, home to 1.3 billion people, is already the world's third-most infected nation with more than 3.5 million cases, behind the US and Brazil.
A rickshaw puller wearing a protective face mask waits for customers on a street, amidst the spread of COVID-19 in the old quarters of Delhi, India. (Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi)
Indian authorities on Saturday further eased coronavirus lockdown restrictions on even as cases and deaths surged across the country.
The government faces pressure to free up the economy as millions have lost jobs since nationwide restrictions were first imposed in March.
The Home Affairs Ministry said that gatherings of up to 100 people would be allowed with face masks and social distancing at cultural, entertainment, sports and political events from next month.
Metro train services will also be allowed to resume "in a graded manner" in major cities.
The coronavirus has badly hit mega cities such as Mumbai and New Delhi, but is now surging in smaller cities and rural areas.
The new government guidelines ordered schools and colleges to remain closed but students can meet teachers on a voluntary basis on school premises if needed.
The government has resisted a mass campaign by students to postpone entrance exams for medical and engineering colleges due to be taken by about two million students next month.
A healthcare worker takes a swab from a police officer for a rapid antigen test at a special testing center for Gujarat Police, in Ahmedabad, India, Aug 17, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Amit Dave
Students say they fear catching the virus in exam halls across the country. Authorities say they are taking special measures for the exams.
The government also said individual states could not impose general lockdowns outside of areas that are considered 'containment zones' where clusters of cases have been reported. Several states have imposed tougher measures in recent weeks because of the rise in cases.
The main opposition Congress party has called for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to set out a firm plan to stop the spread of the pandemic.
