Gallant units sell land worth $45m at Bintan’s Lagoi Bay

TWO subsidiaries of Singapore-listed Gallant Venture Ltd announced on Friday the sale of S$45 million worth of land at Bintan’s new Lagoi Bay development.

PT Bintan Resorts Cakrawals and PT Buana Megawisatama indicated they had sold close to 300,000 square metres at Lagoi Bay on Bintan’s northern coast for various resort, hotel, residential and retail projects. The buyers included property developers as well as resort owners, including niche hotel chain Alila Hotels and Resorts, which plans to open a luxury boutique hotel at Lagoi Bay.

The palm-fringed bay with its long stretches of silver-sand beaches is billed as Asia’s first master-planned beach resort, spread across 1,300 ha. On offer for sale within the development are seven prime beachfront resort sites and over 400 ha of residential sites. Also planned are retail malls, a golf course, a marina and a retirement village.

Bintan, part of Indonesia’s Riau islands, lies 45km south-west of Singapore. It contains an industrial park but has been increasingly positioning itself as a leisure destination. It has witnessed an increase in visitor arrivals from 113,494 in 1996 to 333,749 last year – although growth has remained flat since 2001. About one third of visitors last year were from Singapore, while more than 20 per cent came from Korea and Japan.

‘We envisage one million visitors to Bintan annually by 2012,’ said Gallant’s CEO Eugene Park. He added that Gallant will be investing S$500 million in the island over the next four years, including on roads, power, water and telecom facilities, a new airport to attract short-haul traffic and faster ferries from Singapore – which would cut down travel time to around 40 minutes from one hour at present.

‘We want to develop Bintan as an alternative to Bali and Phuket as a destination of choice for the beach tourist,’ he said.

Gallant’s major shareholders include Indonesia’s Salim group, and Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries, as well as Ascendas.

At a briefing prior to the ground-breaking ceremony of Lagoi Bay, the Regent of Bintan, H. Ansar Ahmad, said the Bintan regency ‘has issued a special regulation for all land in Bintan Resorts and Bintan Industrial Park to be designated as a vital area of the region and be accorded special protection and privileges which prohibit all forms of demonstrations or protests’.

He added that the Regency ‘has also established a one-stop service for all investment licensing and processing, thus doing away with the hassle of having to go to multiple agencies’.

With the establishment of this service, the time needed to obtain all licences will be reduced to only 33 days, he said – about the same as in Malaysia, China, Thailand and Vietnam.

The formal groundbreaking ceremony at Lagoi Bay was performed on Friday night by Riau Islands Governor Ismeth Abdullah.

Source : Business Times – 12 May 2008