ICSC: International Council of Shopping Centers

ICSC's Asia Expo opens in Singapore

SINGAPORE - More than 1,200 developers, retailers and other shopping center industry professionals from at least 30 countries have converged for ICSC's first Asia Expo, the largest retail development gathering ever held in Asia, which opened here today.

The convention comes at a time of vigorous economic growth in Asia that is fueling retail development and a steep rise in living standards. China, for instance, is now the world's third-largest consumer market, behind only Japan and the United States. Retail spending in China is expected to rise by more than 11 percent a year and reach $1.2 trillion in 2010, according to Chinese government officials. Last year it rose 12.9 percent to $0.8 trillion.

In India, which boasts the world's second-biggest population, annual sales are estimated to be between $200 billion and $280 billion, and the number of families considered by economists to qualify as consumers has risen from 35 million in 1996 to about 80 million.

Little wonder then that developers and retailers are lavishing their attention on the region, as evidenced by the turnout at the Expo. One of the region's largest malls to date, the 4.3 million-square-foot Mall of Asia, opened in May, and its developer, SM Prime Holdings, is now looking for development opportunities in China.

CapitaLand Group expects to open 50 malls over the next three years, many of them in China. That would more than double the Singapore-based company's mall portfolio of 45 malls in China, India, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

Beijing will get its first lifestyle center next year when Solana, a $375 million-project developed by Beijing Blue Harbor Properties, opens.

Developers from outside the region, including Simon Property Group and Taubman Centers, are also busy in China and elsewhere. Taubman Centers, which has a large booth in the exhibition hall here similar to the one it builds at ICSC's Spring Convention in Las Vegas each year, is looking at building as many as 12 centers in China, Japan and South Korea.

Domestic retailers, such as the Wumart supermarket chain in China and Reliance Retail in India are expanding rapidly to meet growing consumer demand. The latter was set up this year by Reliance Industries Ltd., India's top petrochemicals firm, which said last month it would invest $5.6 billion in retail, a move analysts say will give it a head start over foreign firms eyeing India.

Foreign firms already in Asia include France's Carrefour, which is now the fifth-largest retailer in China, with more than 240 stores. Wal-Mart has 55 stores there, and says it plans to add 13 more this year. Germany's Metro is expanding in China, as is the U.K.'s Tesco.

In Singapore, conference delegates find themselves surrounded by rampant retail development and redevelopment. In October CapitaLand will open VivoCity, a 1 million-square-foot retail entertainment project overlooking the city-state's harbor. For its part, the city is sprucing up pedestrian walkways along Orchard Road, its main retail thoroughfare.

All of which provides plenty of grist for discussion over the coming two days of conference sessions at the city's Suntec convention center. The Asia Expo is a “hybrid” convention that combines deal-making and education sessions with an exhibition of products and services geared to the industry. As such it broadens the scope of the old ICSC Asia-Pacific Conference & Exhibition that it replaces, say organizers. With the theme “Where Shopping Centres and Retailers Shop,” the show will highlight the rewards and risks that await the shopping center industry professionals that trade or expand in Asia. This will not rival ICSC's Spring Convention in Las Vegas in size, but it is likely to be similarly influential, says Scott Harris, ICSC's director of business development in Asia. “This is going to be the retail convention there,” he said. “While there are real estate meetings in Asia, there has been nothing like this.”

Among the dozens of international companies attending are Altoon + Porter Architects (the U.S.), Ayala Land (the Philippines), CapitaLand, Development Design Group (the U.S.), Dubai Festival City (United Arab Emirates), ING Real Estate (the Netherlands), Ivanhoe Cambridge (Canada), Property World Middle East (United Arab Emirates), Retail Asia (Singapore), Shanghai Kinghill (China), Siam Future Development (Thailand), Skylan Properties (South Korea), and Taubman Asia (U.S.).