Singapore threw open the doors of its second casino yesterday, giving a fresh boost to the city’s tourism sector and raising its profile as a playground for the world’s high-rollers.
The US$5.5 billion Marina Bay Sands, built by US gaming giant Las Vegas Sands, opened at the locally auspicious time of 3:18pm. The number eight sounds like the word for prosperity in Chinese.
It is Las Vegas Sands’ latest big-time bet on the future of Asia’s gaming industry and is its first casino in Asia outside Macau.
PHOTO: AFP
Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Adelson said he expected to recoup his Singapore investment in five years.
“Most of the high-end players are reputable businesspeople. They have to travel anyway so they typically would travel to the major cities, like Hong Kong and Singapore, wherein they do business,” he told reporters.
Singapore gave the green light for casino gambling in 2005, setting off a flurry of construction that went ahead despite the city-state slipping into recession in 2008 because of the global financial crisis.
Its first casino, the US$4.4 billion Resorts World Sentosa built by Malaysia’s Genting Group, opened for business on Feb. 14.
Marina Bay Sands was originally set to open at the end of last year, but faced repeated delays caused by a number of factors, including material and labor shortages and financial problems because of the downturn.
The opening includes the casino and 963 out of 2,560 hotel rooms, a portion of the shopping mall, some restaurants, an exhibition center and the events plaza.
The remaining hotel rooms and suites, a skypark and more shops will open on June 23, while a museum, theaters and other stores will start operations later in the year, the management said.
Officials hope the casinos will help Singapore achieve a target of attracting 17 million visitors a year generating over US$21 billion by 2015, supporting the services sector and reducing the role of manufacturing in the economy.
“This second casino is another boost to the economy, which has been doing much better,” economist David Cohen at research house Action Economics said.
“It should support tourist arrivals, and the retail sector should benefit from that especially now in the midst of the improving global outlook,” he said.
Singapore’s economy surged 13.1 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, prompting the government to sharply upgrade its growth projection this year to 7 percent to 9 percent from 4.5 percent to 6.5 percent.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS