Keppel Land adopts "wait-and-see" approach after property cooling measures

Keppel Land adopts "wait-and-see" approach after property cooling measures
By Lynda Hong | Posted: 23 January 2013 2323 hrs
 
SINGAPORE: Property group Keppel Land expects new home sales in Singapore to "come down quite a bit" this year, after new private home sales hit a record 22,000 units in 2012.

The developer of Reflections at Keppel Bay is not going to rush into launching new projects in the coming months. Instead, Keppel Land is adopting a wait-and-see approach, before making its next move. This after the seventh round of property cooling measures were introduced by the government earlier this month.

Already, some developers, like Qbay, have announced discounts to move sales.

Ang Wee Gee, CEO of Keppel Land, said: "We see prices perhaps consolidating. But we don't see a major correction. But neither do we see the price spiking further because the government will introduce further measures to dampen it. So I suppose where the situation, where the upside possibility is not high, but the downside risk may not be that high as well."

Keppel Land has a huge cash position of S$1.6 billion. This gives it holding power from launching new projects till markets improve. But the company reports net profit in Q4 2012 halved from a year earlier to S$527.3 million. Full year net profit was 39 per cent lower at S$838.37 million.

Still, Keppel Land's earnings beat analysts expectations.

Wilson Liew, an analyst at Maybank-Kim Eng, said: "We are looking at how China sales performed this year as they have shown in FY 2012 that sales rebounded somewhat, and we hope to see the sales momentum to be carried into 2013.

"We also would look out for the potential divestment of Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, sometime this year. In Singapore, we are likely to see a slowdown in sales for the next three months on the back of the cooling measures.

"But we still think that the long-term fundamentals are still attractive, particularly for the residential sector and we will lookout how well Keppel Land does in their launches, such as the ones in Tanah Merah."

Key contributors to last year's total sales of 2,350 homes, Singapore and China will continue to be Keppel Land's core market. The property giant said the stringent cooling measures introduced in the two countries will prevent asset bubbles from forming, supporting a healthy development of these markets. So far, half of Keppel Land's assets are in Singapore, while 35 per cent are in China.

Keppel Land also proposed a final dividend of 12 cents per share.

-CNA/ac

- wong chee tat :)

Competition in EC market likely to heat up, say analysts

Competition in EC market likely to heat up, say analysts
By Lip Kwok Wai, Karen Ng | Posted: 03 December 2012 2247 hrs
 
SINGAPORE: Competition in the Executive Condominium (EC) market is likely to heat up, say analysts.

Four EC sites have already been sold while bids for two sites have opened, indicating that at least six EC projects will be launched in 2013.

Popular with developers, ECs like Heron Bay in Hougang which have five-bedroom units sell especially well.

Less than a month after its launch last October, all 16 of its five-bedroom units were sold out.

ECs with five-bedroom units are also expected to be rolled out in Tampines and Woodlands.

Though more expensive to build, five-bedroom units have more appeal due its capacity for multi-generational families and its rental potential, say developers.

"All the ECs are very well-received, the bids are going up and up. The only challenge is how do we focus on the other factors like design to deliver homes that meet expectations," said Albert Teo, developer of CityLife@Tampines and CEO of Amara Holdings.

- CNA/jc

- wong chee tat :)

S'pore economy likely to have "below potential" growth in 2013: MAS

S'pore economy likely to have "below potential" growth in 2013: MAS
By Linette Lim | Posted: 30 October 2012 2129 hrs
 
SINGAPORE: Singapore's economy may likely see another year of "below potential" growth in 2013, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in its half-yearly macroeconomic review.

MAS said the economy is under pressure from two fronts -- weak export demand globally, and rising business costs due to domestic restructuring.

Large scale public projects such as the construction of the Downtown Line and new Build-To-Order flats have helped cushion Singapore from the global downturn.

Such domestic-oriented activities contributed to almost 70 per cent of economic growth in the first half of the year, even though it only accounts for a third of Singapore's GDP.

Still, that is not enough to fully offset the slowdown in the trade-related activities, the IT cluster, and regionally-exposed services.

Saktiandi Supaat, head of FX Research (Global Markets) at Maybank, said: "Growth is about one to three per cent next year for Singapore. Potential growth, as you know, MAS has always highlighted that it is about three to five per cent, and still maintains that three to five per cent potential growth.

"So there may be some upside to that one to three per cent if things work out in the second half."

For this year, the central bank is sticking to its projection that Singapore will grow 1.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent.

The cyclical downturn in the world economy -- especially in advanced nations -- is affecting Singapore at a time when it is undergoing domestic restructuring.

Jimmy Koh, head of Economics (Treasury Research) at UOB, said: "Liquidity has pushed up asset prices, pushed up CPI and is likely to remain so. At the same time you're trying to restructure your economy to enhance productivity and some sort of wage increase is being seen, (as we are) cutting down our reliance on foreign workers. So you have a lot of moving parts all coming at the same time."

MAS said that "it is important for medium-term restructuring in the domestic economy to proceed even as Singapore faces short-term cyclical headwinds."

Domestic restructuring, which saw the tightening of foreign worker policies, has boosted demand for local workers in the low- and mid-skilled segments, especially in domestic industries like construction and services.

MAS said unit labour costs could rise by as much as three to four per cent in 2013, following the four to five per cent increase this year -- which in turn could be passed on to consumers.

As a result, the sequential increase in core prices, while unlikely to reach the highs in early 2012, is expected to pick up, driving core inflation which excludes accommodation and private road transport, to the range of two to three per cent in 2013, from 2.5 per cent this year.

At the same time, CPI-All Items inflation is expected to ease from slightly above 4.5 per cent to the 3.5 to 4.5 per cent range next year.

-CNA/ac



- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

Here are the updates for the projects:

I ought to provide some updates about the project status but I'm quite busy with other stuff and hence delay.

4th Nov: Last week , I'm very busy with project and of course the amended versions of last and the final HRM tutorial (presentation) on leadership.

My adviser told me the earlier portions of the algorithm were incorrect and needed refinements. I quickly made changes and did some refinements. Just got back the changes on Monday and these few days focused on adviser's comments and made necessary changes to the draft version.

Recheck and recheck before the final version. Don't forget 6th Nov is the deadline for the report!


5th Nov: 6th Nov is the deadline for the report! Progress? Panic.

A great deal of time spent just to check and check through the alignments, settings, configurations, and of course print and submit to respective Profs.

6th Nov: The deadline for the upcoming report!
Submitted. Now, there is still need to showcase / demo the simulations and presentations.

Just hope that everything will be fine.


// Re-edited on 11th Nov

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

I had not gave an update about the project for some time, because of lots of HRM meetings and presentations.

Finally, I met advisor on Monday and he went through some of the portions that were wrong and the areas that needed revisions. Some of the portions were not clear and needed to change.

Made the required revisions quickly and later part of the week focused on simulations results and discussions. This is a big chapter that had the most changes to do. According to adviser, part of the algorithm to compute the required values in the model were wrong and therefore unable to obtain the required simulation results.

Quickly schedule a time to meet him again to clear my remaining doubts. He took time to explain. The later part of the week spent most of the time thinking it through and checking and modifying the code and verifying the results.

Hope the computed results are correct!

Project Status / Updates

It is quite some time that I provided updates about the project. Most of the time are spent on HRM and BOS.

In these few months, most of the simulations are tested and they are consolidated and the results sent to advisor for checking.

The simulation results using low work function on the model don't seem to consistent with the typical work functions. Low work functions materials are promising because of power savings.

Some portions of code are cleaned up.

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

It is quite some time I gave an update on the project. Over the vacations, I had done some work on some of the topics. I will summarized them here.

1) Understanding low work functions on FE. It is known that the material work function is very dependent on the FN theory. However, to be more efficient and use less power, having a low work function material for field emission seems to be a good idea. There are already some research on going in this area, however, most of them lack finer details that I need.

Initial results from simulations (2-3eV) seems in line with typical results (my working model as well as from the articles).

When the work function is made to be lower (< 1eV), on the first look, it follows the typical results. But on closer examination, it doesn't seemed to be so.

2) Tracking electron trajectories follows the classical laws of Physics.

Found some old sources and they revealed interesting behavior. Tempted to write for relativistic regimes but I better not to so.

3) Compiling xoopic doesn't seem to work. I got interested after reading Koh's thesis and from other articles especially from Journal of Applied Physics, but the package were dated in 2002. Searched and tested for the latest 2009 version produces lots of funny error messages. Note: Not a standard package.

4) Report writing

5) Planned for simulating for 2nd model using Zuber, etc. The program (2nd model)already completed and working in just a few days after the last paper.

I did not explore further into the space charge analysis and study the FE behavior due to lack of time. Anyway ,adding the model along with the results would bloat the report!

- wong chee tat :)


                               

Some information about Field Emission

I was searching through the net for some information and I came across this article.

Field Enhanced Emission

The current density in Thermionic-Schottky emission is weakly dependent on the magnitude of the applied electric field. Experimentally it is known that if the field is increased then a point is reached when the emission current starts to exceed the predictions of this theory. There are two models which may be used to explain this behaviour. First though we should discuss the Enhanced Electron Emission concept. If the field is increased above some finite level, then the width of the surface potential barrier becomes small enough that a considerable fraction of the electrons in the bulk material can 'quantum tunnel' through it. The number of electrons at or close to the Fermi energy (for cool metals (T less than T(Fermi)) in particular the bulk of the electrons exist just below the Fermi energy) is very much larger than at the high energies corresponding to the height of the surface potential. Therefore when the width of the barrier becomes such that these electrons can tunnel out, the emission current becomes very sensitive to the electric field. This field emission current quickly becomes much larger than the thermionic current. However the experiments indicate that this happens when the electric field strength is a few orders of magnitude less than theoretical considerations would indicate.

At this point we meet the two competing models: both are based on the concept of surface discontinuities

i) The difference between experiment and theory can be explained if one assumes that on the surface of a cathode, micron sized discontinuities having the form of an outward spike exist. If the length of the spike is>10 times its base dimension then it is relatively easy to expect the local electric field to be enhanced by a considerable amount (> x1000). Then the theoretical model discussed above applies to the surface of the discontinuity. It is interesting that the enhanced emission current from a handful of such micron sized sites can exceed (by many orders of magnitude) the total thermionic current from the bulk cathode at sufficiently high electric fields. Such discontinuities have been observed on real cathode surfaces, and in some experiments at the University of Strathclyde specially manufactured Field Emission Arrays consisting of millions of such individual tips machined in a semiconductor surface have been used as a source of a high quality, highly controllable, electron beam.

ii) The other model is based on the assumption that the onset of Field Enhanced Emission at such a low electric field can be attributed to insulating inclusions (micron sized) in the cathode surface. Electrons emitted from the bulk cathode into the conduction band of the insulator are accelerated towards the vacuum, collisions with electrons in the valance band of the insulator cause an 'avalanche' of electrons. In this model it is assumed that electrons are emitted from the insulator by the thermionic process and the temperature is described in terms of the electric field that has accelerated them through the insulator. This yields a close match to many experimental measurements of Field Enhanced Emission.**

**R.V. Latham, 1983, "Prebreakdown Electron Emission", IEEE Trans. on electrical Insulation, EI-18, pp194-203

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

It is quite some time that I provide some updates about the project. In the last post, I mentioned that I am working on particle trajectories due to the field emission caused by different current regime.

At the first look, the problem seems to be quite difficult. But is it that hard? To track the particle trajectories, understanding Newtonian physics or classical physics is needed and apply the equations of motions to the problem would solve it.

Now, let's us stop and think about the problem.

But is simply applying the equations using classical mechanics valid at high electric fields? If not, how can we modify to make them valid at space charge conditions?

- wong chee tat :)

Field Emission Cathodes and modelling

While surfing the internet and searching some journals from the local library databases, I came across the above picture. I can't remember where I got it from.

Basically, it is a array of Field Emission cathodes. You can see it with your naked eyes. It is typically quite small (microns or nm).

Notice the shape of the individual cathodes are very much like pencil or permanent markers or even some candles. If we consider only one such cathode and consider the tip, it would like similar like this model:





Well, you can say that the model (second picture) does not look the same as that the first picture, but if you decrease the width of the FE cathode, the resulting model would look similar to the model.

Looking at the model, it is plotted in x-y coordinates or simply y is a function of x,
y =f(x), where x is a complicated equation and I don't want to put it here.

Since we know the relationship between y and x, how can we make it sharper or as sharp as possible at the tip of the cathode?


- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

I'm supposed to provide an update last week but I'm busy testing out different sets of simulations, so hence the delay in providing the updates. Anyway, here is a quick update regarding the project.

Previously, testing out different , but related components gave me new insights to the problem.

Currently, I'm working on the problem on particle trajectories due to the field emission caused by different current regime. The first set of "correct" simulation data is just out. I will analyze and see if it make sense or not. If not, I'll have to modify it. I guess this will take a while and hopefully, I can finish the simulation as quickly as possible.

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

Nothing much progress for these few days except for tuning up the codes and reading and re-reading the papers. Totally unexpected and unacceptable.

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

I ought to give an update on Friday or so, but I'm busy. Well, never mind, a quick update is posted here:

One of the selected 2D models were refined and used. The latter model was not used because the model would be too long and too complicated for a typical reader and can be hard to debug too.

The 2D model quite agreed with the literature.

The main specs as discussed last week were analyzed, tested and completed.

The next steps to consider:

1) Applying classical mechanics to study the ejected particles. Had long forgotten my classical mechanics, and I need to read up a bit and clear my cobwebs. Oops,.... Now you know..... =D

2) Validity of the model in generalized Nth-D and extension of CL Law in Nth-D. Possible? or too hard? =) I have no ideas but it will be fun to explore into the unknown.

3) etc....



- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

This little blog post is to provide a quick update about the project that I am currently working on.

After meeting with Prof on Friday, he gave me new tasks to do.For my part, I gave him updates about my progress and he explained that the methods that I used in the 5 different models (Yes, I programmed 5 different models) are correct for planar models only, and the equations, unfortunately, do not apply to what we are doing or researching on. :(

He explained that in order to do that, the methods or rather the equations have to be changed , of course.

So for the weekends, I came up with some simple methods in order to solve the new tasks. I will provide more updates later on.

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

Code Fixing:

- A more efficient method to compute current of a specific field emitter model

A more efficient method is needed to compute surface current of a specific field emitter model without going through the hassle of using complicated integration.

Currently, the simplified version used to solve the above mentioned problem proved to be slow and at times error prone. (See C4)

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

Code Fixed:

- Area determined for one of the field emitter models found to be computed incorrectly

Applied a too low minimum voltage to one of the field emitter models (V approx. 2V therein ) can sometimes caused area computed incorrectly and the current obtained was inconsistent with other models even though it was thought to be in agreement with the theory.

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

Code fixed:

- Added newer field emitter models to study emission details

This is needed to understand different models and how each geometry affect emission

- Improved area calculation and current calculation.

Previous methods were slow and unreliable.

- Pre-allocation added for vectorization.

Optimization for fast computation.

- Fast transition voltage calculation.

Just added this code today. Determination of transition voltage was through graphical plots which are more error prone. A simpler and faster approach is used to compute transition voltage.

- Code cleanup

As above.


Wish List =)

Faster automated code testing



- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

Currently, I am reading and understanding this paper: Electric field distribution on knife-edge field emitters.

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates / Status

Exams are over!

And now I continue to do the assigned project. I am quite busy these few days because I have been reading one of the PhD's thesis (Thanks Dr K! =) )and digging through the local campus database for more information and more reading, and programming too.

- wong chee tat :)

Project Updates... Stuck!

Currently, I am reading up one of the research papers that were given by Prof. While reading and coding in high level langauge, I came across this interestingly strange mathematical stuff named as: Incomplete elliptical integral of the second kind.

Like this:

My first reaction: Oh God! What is that???? Not taught in my engine courses..... How?

Lets' turn to Google and see what does it showed up in the searches:

Elliptic integral

Elliptic Integral of the Second Kind (Complete)

Elliptic integrals of the first and second kind and Elliptic Integral Overview and a quick calculator is here (link).

Great! But how to code it?

- wong chee tat :)