Prepared industrial land allocation up net 90%

Net allocation of prepared industrial land (PIL) by JTC Corporation increased 90 per cent to 95.7 ha in the first quarter of 2007.

In its Q1 facilities report released yesterday, JTC Corp said the increase was due to net allocation at specialised parks, with gross allocations achieved by Jurong Island (64.3 ha) and wafer fab specialised parks (7.1 ha).

Year on year, however, net allocation of PIL was down 24 per cent.

Gross allocation of PIL for the quarter was led by the chemical sector (55 per cent), followed by services (17 per cent) and logistics (12 per cent).

Precision engineering accounted for the bulk of termination of leases of PIL at 53 per cent or 4.7 ha.

Generic land accounted for 26 per cent of overall gross allocation of PIL and 19 per cent of overall net allocation.

Local establishments’ share of generic land grew 12 per cent, while foreign firms accounted for 63 per cent of total terminations.

Gross allocation of ready-built facilities fell 30 per cent to 52,000 square metres, from 67,300 sq m in Q4 2006.

In this segment, take up of flatted factory space was mainly by the services cluster (15,500 sq m), general manufacturing (5,500 sq m) and precision engineering (5,100 sq m).

Services also continued to account for the bulk of terminated flatted factory space (42 per cent) followed by electronics (18 per cent) and general manufacturing (17 per cent).

Business park and technopreneur space were the two ready-built segments that grew in Q1.

Net allocation of technopreneur space was 1,200 sq m, up from 300 sq m in the previous quarter, while terminations of 300 sq m were the lowest since Q3 2004.

Net allocation of business park space was 4,600 sq m, up from 2,400 sq m in the previous quarter but down from 8,500 sq m in Q1 2006.

Occupancy for business park space was 93 per cent, while occupancy for technopreneur space was 74 per cent.

Overall occupancy of ready-built facilities was 88.1 per cent for the quarter, up from 88 per cent in Q4 2006 and 84.4 per cent from Q1 2006.

Source : Business Times - 1 May 2007