It has so far bought about 916 hectares (ha) in Vietnam. The biggest is an 874ha site about 19km from Ho Chi Minh City that will become an international university township, senior BLand executives said.
“Our GDV (estimates) are very conservative. I told my staff not to put the figure too high,” BCorp chairman Tan Sri Vincent Tan said last Thursday to a group of Malaysian fund managers, analysts and journalists, who visited the project sites in the two cities.
“We want to be the biggest (property) investor in Vietnam. The country is starting from a very low base. Its economy is to grow more than 12 per cent this year. Potentially, it can grow six per cent to seven per cent annually in the next 10 years and at least five per cent a year in 20 years,” Tan said.
The projects, three in Ho Chi Minh City and one in the capital Hanoi, will be developed over 12 years. They include a new Vietnam financial centre and a new city centre in Hanoi.
BLand chief executive officer Datuk Francis Ng said the projects are to capitalise on Vietnam’s fast-growing economy, which is now the focus of multinational companies.
Real estate agent CB Richard Ellis managing director Marc Townsend said the Vietnamese property market had rapidly grown since 2003 and that the lack of supply had pushed land and building prices and rental rates to record highs.
BLand’s new university township will be developed jointly with Ho Chi Minh City’s Northwest Metropolitan Area Authority.
“The GDV is expected at US$7.5 billion (RM25 billion) over 12 years,” Ng said, adding that BLand should start generating income from the project in 2010.
It will have universities, colleges, schools, houses, offices, shopping mall, hotels, hospitals and an information technology centre.
The first phase is targeted for launch in mid-2009. The overall project is part of a bigger Ho Chi Minh City’s North-West administrative district being developed on a 3,200ha site.
The company, Ng said, should get the investment licence that will let it start construction works in two months. Initial phases will include the development of two private universities on some 300ha.
“About 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the total area has been allocated for international private universities. We have started talking to University of Westminster and University of Birmingham of the UK,” he added.
BLand has started construction on a residential and commercial project called Thach Ban New City on 31.33ha in Hanoi, with expected GDV of US$500 million (RM1.67 billion) in five years.
The first phase of a total nine phases planned during the five years comprises 148 units of condominiums.
The company has an 80 per cent stake in the project, with a Vietnamese partner holding the rest.
The Vietnam financial centre in District 10 in Ho Chi Minh City, meanwhile, will have a GDV of US$1.2 billion (RM4 billion) over six years from 2008.
Development on 8.2ha will include two blocks of serviced apartments and hotel, and three blocks of office towers.
“We are confident of getting the investment licence for the project by the end of this month,” Ng said, adding that the project should cost BLand some US$700 million (RM2.33 billion) to develop.
By New Straits Times
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