Thailand's real-estate market is benefiting from Asia's property boom, says Julien Sausset, sales director for Asia's largest real-estate exhibition, MIPIM Asia.

For the past few years, despite sharing only 14 per cent of the total foreign direct investment in real estate, the Asian-Pacific property market has been experiencing a great leap forward. The latest figures from Deutsche Bank Real Estate show that at nearly 56 per cent, Asia has the strongest transaction volume growth, with cross-border investment jumping 35 per cent to US$150 billion (Bt5.3 trillion) in 2005.

With such a rosy prospect, Sausset said European and US institutional investors were pouring more money into the region.

"Let's look at it this way:

last year there were four new department stores in the US, while in China, there were about 200 new department stores," said Sausset.

With Asia making up $4.8 trillion, or 31 per cent, of the world's $15.4 trillion invested real estate, Sausset said the region was "trapped" in a growth process - in need of more funding and project sales.

Sausset said regionally, Thailand had one of the best infrastructures for supporting real-estate growth. The Kingdom has been riding the wave of Asia's property boom, with South Koreans and Taiwanese investing heavily in the country.

He cited the recent share acquisition of Raimon Land by two Middle East groups - Istithmar Real Estate and IFA Hotels and Resorts - for about Bt2 billion as another example of foreign investment.

Sausset said in a two-way money movement, local developers like the Central Pattana Group had also been trying to expand aboard.

Thailand's property market is becoming structured and easier for independent investors to buy into, he said.

He added that the market would find an adjustment to fit the legal ownership limitation while also recognising it might be a barrier to small investors. Currently, foreigners still cannot own land, but can lease for a limited 30-year period, renewable.

Ki Nan Tsui

The Nation