SINGAPORE: Indonesia's ban on the supply of land sand will not
affect the construction of the two Integrated Resorts significantly
according to the two operators, Las Vegas Sands and the Genting
International-Star Cruises consortium.
At a presentation on the resorts at the ASEAN Tourism Forum,
Genting International has also confirmed that Macau casino mogul,
Stanley Ho will not have a stake in the Sentosa IR project.
The government had questioned Genting International, the winning
bidder for the Sentosa IR project about its links with Macau's
casino billionaire, Stanley Ho, when talk surfaced that he could
possibly have an interest in the resort here.
However, all that came to nought when it confirmed on Friday that
"Mr Ho will not be having an interest in the Resorts World at
Sentosa project."
The next hot question was whether the recent stop in supply of
Indonesian sand will disrupt the IR projects.
Genting International says it will work closely with the Building
and Construction Authority on this issue and should be ready to
break ground in a few months.
Declining an on-camera interview, Genting's Jackson Loy says "the
government has made known that there's sufficient stock-pile and
therefore, we do not think that it will be an issue."
The Marina Bay Sands IR operator also hopes the sand issue is just
a temporary glitch.
"Our supply of concrete resumes in the course of this week, so
hopefully, that's behind us now. // We had three or four days of
disruption last week, we're just getting back up to speed so I
don't think in terms of long term, hopefully in the long term, it
won't impact us in terms of costs," said John Downs, Project
Director, Marina Bay Sands.
The Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort will hold its ground
breaking ceremony next week, and over there at its site,
construction is already well-underway.
Next year, the company says construction will focus mainly on work
underground. But everything is on schedule for its opening in
2009.
"In terms of construction progress, we've been doing basic enabling
work, we've secured the perimeter of the site, we've established a
temporary site office down there, we've done some soil
investigation works, we've done some test-piling works, and basic
management of the site area. We're basically getting ourselves
prepared now with temporary utilities to get underway in full swing
with permanent construction elements," said Downs.
When asked about a sea wall underground that could pose as a
construction challenge at Marina, Mr Downs points out that working
on reclaimed land is not easy, but the contractors are dealing with
it. - CNA
Hope Singapore can find sand supplies soon.. 