Realcast Singapore: raising the green bar, growth masks rate rises, foreign forays on hold

In the spotlight this week:

Real Asset Media’s Richard Betts discovers a more optimistic perspective of the markets while in Singapore with PwC’s Christiane Conrads and Thomas Veith.

There is considerable interest from Singapore and Asia generally in European ESG standards and strategies and Singapore is ambitious to become one of the leading financial hubs in the region for green finance. Meanwhile, Singapore’s City in the Garden project is well advanced and the country is also already a leader in vertical farming and biodiversity, green facades and green rooftops.

Singapore is not only attracting significant capital flows with a good REIT regime and flexibility for establishing companes, but it is also attracting a skilled labour force and rises in residential prices reflect this.

While Asia is not immune to the interest rate increases that are now fairly universal, this tends to be masked in countries like Malaysia, India and Indonesia by much stronger economic growth rates.

Although Asian investors will invest in Europe again in the future, Europe has to “do its homework” to solve the energy crisis there. So while Europe is still on the agenda for Asian investors, they will wait and see before investing while good opportunities are still plentiful in the Asia Pacific region.

Click on the video to see the full discussion or listen to the podcast below.