Transcript of Remarks by Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade & Industry, at the Press Conference on the Award of the Integrated Resort on Sentosa, Friday 8 December 2006, 5.30pm, at The Evaluation Venue, Sentosa 

1Good evening.

2As DPM has mentioned, he outlined the strategic objectives of the Sentosa IR, and I would just like to highlight the few key words. First is that we are looking for a family resort. As you know, the leisure business constitutes 59 per cent of our tourist arrivals, so this is a very important segment to market.

3The second important key word is that it must be of significant scale. We are looking for a large scale resort. And that is the reason why we allocated 49ha of prime land in Sentosa for this project.

4The third is that we want this to be a key anchor attraction for Sentosa, and therefore the proposal must take the context into consideration Sentosa and the overall wider Harbour Front precinct.

5As DPM said, we are looking at the Sentosa IR to draw large numbers of new and repeat family visitors to Singapore. The reason why Genting has been awarded is because they gave us the most compelling proposal. Let me just highlight a few key areas and the presentation later will fill you in on the details.

Highlights of Resorts World at Sentosa IR

6First, for the family leisure attractions. Genting offers four gated attractions. Universal Studios Singapore will have 22 major attractions, of which 16 will be specially designed for Singapore. This large number of attractions makes this a very sizeable theme park, comparable to Universal Studios Orlando, and larger than Universal Studios Hollywood.

7As a comparison, Universal Studios Orlando has about 20 attractions. But it also has the Islands of Adventure with 22 attractions. Universal Studios Osaka has 18 attractions and Universal Studios Hollywood has 14 attractions. So this is a big theme park, comparable to the one in Orlando.

8Furthermore, Genting’s licensing agreement with Universal Studios is for 30 years, with exclusivity rights for the whole region.

9The second gated attraction is the Quest Marine Life Park, which will house 700,000 aquatic animals and other marine life. The third attraction is the Equarius Water Park, which is about 1.3ha and will have water-based adventure rides. The fourth gated attraction is the MaritimeXperiential Museum, which will be a showcase of Asia’s maritime history.

10The proposal from Genting also offers a wide range of entertainment attractions. For example, they are providing a theatre show called “Le Vie”. This is a 1,600 seat show. This is a resident show which will be put together by the same team who created Cirque du Soleil’s two very popular shows called “Ka” and “O” in Las Vegas.

11The other entertainment offering by Genting is Festive Walk with several arenas where you can bring in large groups, of which they have The Showplace, The Bull Ring, and Imagineering. And on the waterfront, there will be a spectacular show called the Crane Ballet.

12Furthermore, the proposal also includes signature gourmet restaurants and themed retail stores. The proposal will have six hotels offering more than 1,800 rooms.

Tourism & Economic Impact of Resorts World and the two IRs

13We selected Genting because the total project investment is about S$5.2 billion which includes the land cost of S$605 million. We made a projection and we estimated that the economic contribution of Genting’s proposal will be largely similar to the Marina Bay Sands’ proposal, which is about $2.7 billion in value-Add contribution to our Gross Domestic Product (or GDP); or approximately 0.8 per cent contribution to GDP, and generate about 30,000 jobs throughout the economy in the year 2015.

14So we believe that both the Marina and the Sentosa IRs complement each other very well and the two IRs will allow us to stimulate the growth of two very important business sectors - the BTMICE sector and the leisure sector. And we believe these two IRs will bring us closer to our tourism 2015 targets.