http://www.straitstimes.com/archive/...stors-20130905

'Develop common platform for investors'

It could make cross-border property transactions easier, says Shanmugam

Published on Sep 05, 2013

By Melissa Tan


THE Government wants to make it easier for investors to buy property across the region.

Asia-Pacific countries could work together to develop a platform for their various real estate regulations to converge, Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam said yesterday.

He did not elaborate on the specifics but suggested such a platform could streamline the process of making cross-border property investments within the region.

"If you look at the regulatory systems, the different approaches from China all the way down south to Malaysia, India, to Japan, then you see the complexities," Mr Shanmugam said at the Asia Pacific Real Estate Congress 2013 at the Concorde Hotel.

"I think it's really opportune for people to come together to look at these differences, and understand the differences and offer the best value to clients around the globe on how to negotiate the cultural, regulatory and various other issues in investment."

He said countries could bring together "people who have some role in regulation to try and standardise, upgrade, have some sort of platform for regulations to converge so that it becomes easier".

He did not say what specific role Singapore could play in developing such a platform.

Dealing with major cross-border disputes is one important issue often not talked about, he added.

"Inevitably, while many deals go well, some will go south. How do you have a mechanism that gives the investor confidence?

"The stronger the mechanism, the better the belief that... if anything goes wrong, there is good recourse, not only to the national courts, but also to an international arbitration process that applies across the region."

Mr Shanmugam, a top lawyer, said that litigation and arbitration are not meant to be the first recourse, but are "simply there as insurance to give confidence to people that, 'hey, now I can invest even more'."

Real estate players here said that such a platform could be useful. Local developer Roxy-Pacific Holdings' executive chairman and chief executive Teo Hong Lim said that his firm has thus far relied on consultants to help it deal with the myriad regulatory differences when it comes to overseas transactions, but smaller firms may find it "a bit more challenging" to do so.

Roxy-Pacific recently invested in a project in Malaysia and is also eyeing markets such as Australia and Britain.

The Asia Pacific Real Estate Congress was organised by Fiabci Singapore, SAEA and the Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers, in conjunction with STProperty.

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