Lippo Karawaci named Indonesia best developer
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Real estate developer PT Lippo Karawaci was voted best developer in Indonesia and ranked ninth in Asia Pacific according to London-based financial magazine Euromoney's 2005 Real Estate Awards.
The award, voted upon by industry peers, was judged on the criteria of most consistent providers of high quality, profitable real estate projects as well as individual developments, both recently completed and those at the planning stage.
"This award is presented based not only on the company's financial figures, but also from a poll of peers in the real estate industry, meaning that people in your industry also respect you," Neil Osborn, Euromoney's publisher and managing director, said in the award ceremony on Tuesday.
In Asia, Lippo Karawaci ranks ninth after major players such as Hong Kong's Sun Hung Kai Properties, Australia's Westfield Group, Macquarie and Mirvac, the Philippine's Ayala Land, Japan's Mitsubishi Estate and China Vanke.
For the past 10 years, the magazine has annually awarded banks and securities companies across the world for achievements of high standards of excellence, but this year was the first time it had a category for real estate.
"We have never done real estate before because until recently it was very domestic. But the scale of international investment is going up, and the complexity of finance surrounding the real estate industry has become more complex in the last four to five years," Osborn said, adding that Euromoney believes in cross- border investment.
PT Lippo Karawaci is a property group with three core businesses: housing and land development, infrastructure and hospitality, health care and hospitals.
The development of Lippo Karawaci in Tangerang, Banten, began in 1992 with a winning Edge City master plan from urban planning expert Gordon G. Benton, OBE.
"Our vision was to make it a city with the best infrastructure, with its own drinking water, sewage treatment and recycling, good public transportation and good, green, environment," Benton said.
He said that Lippo Karawaci was now home to some 40,000 people or 9,000 families, and provided some 47,000 jobs in the retail, education, medical and sports sectors.
"I think Lippo Karawaci was voted one of the best developers because of one of our land and housing development divisions that was successful in developing three new cities -- Lippo Karawaci in Banten, Lippo Cikarang in Bekasi and Tanjung Bunga in Makasar," Lippo Karawaci president Viven Sitiabudi said.
She also said that the company was also responsible for the development of major shopping centers in Tangerang, Depok, Cibubur, Surabaya and Malang in East Java, as well as in Medan and Binjai in North Sumatra.