The world's biggest observation wheel is ready to start up in Singapore tonight, with corporate clients paying thousands of dollars for the "inaugural flight," the company said.
At 165m, the Singapore Flyer will be 30m higher than Britain's London Eye, said Great Wheel Corp, which built the Singapore attraction.
"We're actually ahead of time and on budget," David Beevers, general manager of the Singapore Flyer, said from the waterfront site. "It's all systems go."
PHOTO: AFP
The wheel will start twirling just before dusk, organizers said.
The attraction's first three nights were sold out, Beevers said. Companies and individuals paid S$8,888 (US$6,271), considered an auspicious number, for the first rides.
"Through the month of February ... it's a whole series of private events each day that's going to allow us to ramp up to full opening March 1 for the public," Beevers said.
Groups of between 600 and 1,000 people were expected at the initial private events, Beevers said, with a formal opening to take place on April 15.
Unlike small Ferris wheel carriages that hang in the open air, the Singapore Flyer and other large observation wheels feature fixed "capsules."
The 28 capsules -- each about the size of a city bus -- are air conditioned and can hold up to 28 people each.
Among the first clients will be SG Private Banking. The French-based global private wealth manager has booked 11 capsules on Wednesday night for its annual staff celebration of the Lunar New Year, said Pierre Baer, the company's Singapore and South Asia chief executive officer.
Developers of the Singapore Flyer said there was no comparison between a giant, slowly rotating observation wheel and a Ferris wheel.
"We don't use the `F-word,'" Florian Bollen, the chairman of Singapore Flyer, told reporters during a preview of the attraction last year.
Bollen's Singapore-based company, Great Wheel Corp, is also building wheels in Beijing and Berlin which will edge out the Singapore Flyer as the world's biggest when they begin turning in about two years, he said.
Singapore's wheel is located across from the Marina Bay Sands casino complex set to open in 2009, and is near the pit area of a Formula One Grand Prix street race to be held for the first time in the city-state in September.
The Singapore Flyer project, worth about S$240 million, is a private venture backed mainly by German investors. But Bollen said it received strong marketing and other support from the city-state's tourism board.
Bollen said that his company was the only bidder for the project designed by Kisho Kurokawa Architects and Associates of Tokyo, along with Singapore's DP Architects.
The wheel was built by Mitsubishi Corp and Takenaka Corp of Japan.
SMART MANUFACTURING: The company aims to have its production close to the market end, but attracting investment is still a challenge, the firm’s president said Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said its long-term global production plan would stay unchanged amid geopolitical and tariff policy uncertainties, citing its diversified global deployment. With operations in Taiwan, Thailand, China, India, Europe and the US, Delta follows a “produce at the market end” strategy and bases its production on customer demand, with major site plans unchanged, Delta president Simon Chang (張訓海) said on the sidelines of a company event yesterday. Thailand would remain Delta’s second headquarters, as stated in its first-quarter earnings conference, with its plant there adopting a full smart manufacturing system, Chang said. Thailand is the firm’s second-largest overseas
‘REMARKABLE SHOWING’: The economy likely grew 5 percent in the first half of the year, although it would likely taper off significantly, TIER economist Gordon Sun said The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) yesterday raised Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.02 percent, citing robust export-driven expansion in the first half that is likely to give way to a notable slowdown later in the year as the front-loading of global shipments fades. The revised projection marks an upward adjustment of 0.11 percentage points from April’s estimate, driven by a surge in exports and corporate inventory buildup ahead of possible US tariff hikes, TIER economist Gordon Sun (孫明德) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy likely grew more than 5 percent in the first six months
SUPPLY RESILIENCE: The extra expense would be worth it, as the US firm is diversifying chip sourcing to avert disruptions similar to the one during the pandemic, the CEO said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) on Wednesday said that the chips her company gets from supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would cost more when they are produced in TSMC’s Arizona facilities. Compared with similar parts from factories in Taiwan, the US chips would be “more than 5 percent, but less than 20 percent” in terms of higher costs, she said at an artificial intelligence (AI) event in Washington. AMD expects its first chips from TSMC’s Arizona facilities by the end of the year, Su said. The extra expense is worth it, because the company is
The seizure of one of the largest known mercury shipments in history, moving from mines in Mexico to illegal Amazon gold mining zones, exposes the wide use of the toxic metal in the rainforest, according to authorities. Peru’s customs agency, SUNAT, found 4 tonnes of illegal mercury in Lima’s port district of Callao, according to a report by the non-profit Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA). “This SUNAT intervention has prevented this chemical from having a serious impact on people’s health and the environment, as can be seen in several areas of the country devastated by the illegal use of mercury and illicit activities,”
RSS