A 77-storey skyscraper is set to become the latest and tallest, addition to Bangkok’s ever-changing skyline, already transformed by a construction boom that has raised fears of a property bubble.
Variously described on Internet forums as looking “like it has been eaten by giant termites” and reflecting “the chaos of Bangkok,” the MahaNakorn — Great Metropolis — will tower over the Thai capital when it is finished in 2014.
At 314m it will be the city’s tallest building, but size was not what mattered, said Sorapoj Techakraisri, of PACE Development, which began building the skyscraper in June.
“I just wanted something unique, something interesting,” he said.
MahaNakorn’s unusual pixelated spiral design was created by German architect Ole Scheeren, who was behind Beijing’s futuristic China Central Television headquarters. The 19 billion baht (US$640 million) tower will house apartments, a shopping center and a Ritz-Carlton hotel.
“When the economy gets better, the buildings go higher,” Sorapoj said.
Thailand’s economic health -appears robust, growing 7.8 percent last year despite street protests by the opposition “Red Shirts” that brought large areas of Bangkok to a standstill for two months.
An ever-increasing number of pristine new apartment blocks jostle for space in desirable areas, vying for custom as billboards written in idiosyncratic English promise swanky lifestyles.
It is a far cry from a decade ago, when the city was littered with the skeletal remains of abandoned tower blocks, casualties of the 1997 Asian financial crisis that devastated the region.
The Bank of Thailand has described last year as the ‘golden year for real estate businesses,” with strong demand for homes — driven by low interest rates and increased consumer confidence — causing a flurry of new building.
This resulted in a 13.6 percent increase in registrations of new homes in Bangkok to the highest level since the 1997 crisis, according to the bank’s annual report last year.
The bank said it would be “vigilant” for signs of a bubble — which it defined as a “sharp” increase in asset prices combined with strong growth in home loans. A bubble could then burst if demand drops off and there is a glut of available properties.
Central bankers did not detect a bubble building, but raised concern over risk-taking in the sector.
As demand slowed after expiry of stimulus measures in June last year — such as two-year -interest-free home loans for first time buyers — developers increasingly resorted to high-risk strategies in their fight to fill properties.
Homebuyers with “insufficient purchasing power or subprime customers” were persuaded to buy, the bank said, while lenders also boosted the number of loans at 90 percent or more of the property value.
To help “maintain economic stability,” the bank responded by making some high loan-to-value lending more expensive for financial institutions.
Property research group Agency for Real Estate Affairs (AREA) said it had detected a build-up in oversupply and warned that the level would become unsustainable.
Its figures show there were more than 135,000 unsold property units in Bangkok and its suburbs as of last month, including projects under construction.
Another 100,000 units are expected to come in to the market next year.
AREA president Sopon Pornchokchai said he could foresee an “upcoming bubble.”
“If something happened to our economy or politics, it could cause the bubble to burst,” he said.
However, Kobsidthi Silpachai, head of markets and economic research at Kasikorn Bank, said Thailand’s economic health meant it was in a better position than in 1997, adding that if a bubble did burst its impact would be limited.
“If it did really happen it would certainly affect industries related to real-estate, like steel and cement, but it would not affect other businesses,” he said.
Sorapoj shrugged off jitters over the health of the real-estate sector, although he conceded that the Red Shirt protests had hurt interest from foreign investors.
He was confident Thailand’s incoming leadership — which is affiliated to the Red Shirts and won a thumping majority in the July 3 election — would be able to avert any threats.
“I’m not worried about oversupply. The new government will do whatever it takes to prevent bubbles,” he said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day