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Elaine Chan

SHANGHAI'S drive to attract foreign investors to its low-cost housing market has drawn interest from the Singapore government.

  Singapore's Housing Development Board (HDB), responsible for the island republic's public housing, in which 87 per cent of its citizens live, has been in discussions with the Shanghai Construction Commission to develop a 66.7-hectare site on the outskirts of the city.

  Fan Yutang, a senior official of the Shanghai Housing and Land Administration, said the Singaporeans were interested in developing a 200 to 250 hectare site in phases.

  The initial development area narrowed down to a choice between a site in Pudong's Jinqiao Export Processing Zone or one in Puxi's southern district of Minhang.

  Mr Fan said the Singaporeans were more interested in the Minhang site.

  The extension of the city's subway, Metro Line One, to the district would make this site more accessible to local residents.

   Another five kilometres of track will be added to the system, costing one billion yuan (about HK$928.8 million), will be added in the southern direction, starting from where the last station, Jinjiang Playground, is located.

  The development project will comprise numerous low-rise residential blocks, with a plot ratio of 1.5 times.

  The average construction cost was estimated at 139.3 yuan per square foot.

  Mr Fan said the two parties were still in discussions and should come to an agreement soon.

  A delegation comprising Singaporean designers, developers and HDB officials visited Shanghai recently.

  A similar plan is being drawn up to build flats for locals in the 7,000-hectare Singapore-Suzhou Township in Suzhou, 90 kilometres from Shanghai.

  The plan is to build flats for 100,000 people in the first phase, 200,000 in the second and 300,000 in the third.

  Shanghai introduced regulations promising a 15 per cent return on investment to foreign investors interested in developing low-cost housing.

  Under the regulations, the government is to set construction standards for the projects.

  When completed, the government would then be required to buy the entire complex from the developer.

  The government would then sell the completed flats to middle-to-lower income local residents whose per capita living space was about 43 sq ft or less.

  The city's average per capita living space is about 81.8 sq ft and officials want to increase that to 100 sq ft by 2000.

  The goal is to provide about 538.2 million sq ft of housing in five years' time.

  The biggest demand comes from people with medium incomes who are looking for medium-to-low-priced flats with average selling prices of about 185.8 yuan per sq ft.



Singapore eyes Shanghai's low-cost housing projects