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Channel NewsAsia - Wednesday, October 3

SINGAPORE: When a Singapore icon like Raffles City goes global, it brings along with it other "made—in—Singapore retailers", said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew at the 21st anniversary celebrations of Raffles City on Tuesday evening.

Raffles City was launched on 3 October 1987, and for Mr Lee, the site brings back memories of Raffles Institution, where he was a student from 1936 to 1939.

Over the years, Raffles City Singapore has transformed the landscape in the very heart of the city.

Mr Lee said: "Over the past two decades, Raffles City has added to the unique Singapore brand and gained international recognition for itself and Singapore. It is an iconic landmark attracting throngs of tourists, business travellers, shoppers and diners every day.

"Its mix of tenants and visitors is a reflection of the cosmopolitan and diverse nature of Singapore. Its continued vibrancy speaks well of the original design and of its continuous maintenance and upgrading."

Mr Lee also added that CapitaLand, the developer of Raffles City, is exporting the concept overseas.

Several new Raffles City developments, designed by the world’s top architects, are being built in the city centres of Beijing, Chengdu and Bahrain’s Manama.

According to Mr Lee, the success of Raffles City can be attributed to its incorporation of experienced tenancy operation and management of hotels, service apartments, shopping malls and commercial spaces.

And such an expertise is being exported by the Raffles City team in CapitaLand.

He said: "With more Raffles City developments, together with their Singapore retailer tenants established in key cities around the world, they can over time become another marketing icon for Singapore.

"CapitaLand is planning to increase the number of Raffles City developments to ten and a number of other gateway cities have already approached CapitaLand to build similar Raffles City projects. The challenge is always to find a site suitable for a development of this nature."

In this way, Mr Lee said, companies like Capitaland also extend Singapore’s footprint in the global arena.