[The dam has been
touted as the best way to end centuries of flooding along the Yangtze and
provide power for China’s industrial boom. But some geologists contend that
damming up too much water in the reservoir carries a heightened risk of
earthquakes and prolonged damage to the river’s ecology.]
By Associated Press
 |
| (The Three Gorges Dam in Yangtze River in China, The largest dam in the world) |
SHANGHAI — Another
100,000 people may have to move away from China’s Three Gorges Dam due to the
risk of disastrous landslides and bank collapses around the reservoir of the
world’s biggest hydroelectric facility, state media said Wednesday.
The Ministry of Land
Resources says the number of landslides and other disasters has increased 70
percent since the water level in the $23 billion showcase project rose to its
maximum level in 2010.
Some 1.4 million people
already have been resettled due to the huge project on the Yangtze River.
Authorities may move another 100,000 people in the next three to five years to
minimize the risk of casualties from such threats, Liu Yuan, a ministry
official, told China National Radio in a report posted on a government website
and carried by the Shanghai Daily newspaper.
He said that 5,386
danger sites were being monitored and that work was beginning on rockfalls and
landslides at 335 locations around the lake.
Ministry officials
refused to comment on Liu’s remarks.
In a recent report,
though, the ministry outlined many of the same concerns, including 196
geological “emergencies” in 2008-2009.
Fluctuations in water
levels can trigger landslides and other problems, and the risks are accentuated
by the density of the population in the area, it said.
About a year ago,
China’s Cabinet outlined a slew of urgent environmental, geologic and economic
problems related to the dam, which has been the subject of intense debate for
decades.
Many of the people
obliged to move to make way for the Three Gorges Dam have struggled to regain
their livelihoods and settle into new homes, that report said.
The dam has been touted
as the best way to end centuries of flooding along the Yangtze and provide
power for China’s industrial boom. But some geologists contend that damming up
too much water in the reservoir carries a heightened risk of earthquakes and
prolonged damage to the river’s ecology.
A recent report by the
environmental group Probe International contended that the entire upper
Yangtze, where 20 dams are located, is among areas facing the risk of cascading
failures of dams built in seismically active areas.
The government has
acknowledged that filling the reservoir has increased the frequency of
earthquakes, but denied that it had anything to do with a powerful quake to the
northwest in Sichuan on May 12, 2008, that killed 87,000 people.
___
Associated Press
researcher Fu Ting contributed to this report.
Related link: CHINA AND INDIA RACE FOR DAMS ON RIVER BRAHMAPUTRA: IMPACTS COULD BE MASSIVE AND UNKNOWN
[These days, that Italian clan and other ultra-affluent families are moving assets to Singapore by setting up family offices — private companies that manage the trusts and investments of rich households — in the city-state sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of Asia.]
By Reuters
SINGAPORE — In the 1470s, the Spinola family of Genoa had
offices all over the world, including in Barcelona, where an apprentice
business agent named Christopher Columbus helped handle shipments.
These days, that Italian
clan and other ultra-affluent families are moving assets to Singapore by
setting up family offices — private companies that manage the trusts and
investments of rich households — in the city-state sometimes referred to as the
Switzerland of Asia.
Wealthy people from
Europe and the Americas have long looked to the East for ways to build and
preserve their fortunes. But only recently have they started opening family
offices in the region in earnest.
“Because Asia has been a
place where we’ve been investing very heavily — more than 50 percent of our assets
are in Asia for the last 15 years — we feel a need to come closer,” Federico
Spinola, son of the family patriarch, said in an interview from New Caledonia,
a Pacific archipelago.
Campden Wealth, which
provides research and data on family offices, said that up to 10 European
family offices had moved to Singapore since the financial crisis in 2008,
bringing $5 billion to $10 billion worth of assets with them.
Singapore, a global
banking and investment center in the heart of Southeast Asia, is an attractive
base because of its efficient registration process, relatively benign
regulations, smooth movement of money, financial infrastructure and low tax
rates.
The island, which is
clean and safe, also offers high-end shopping, fine dining, casinos, luxury
hotels, golf courses and marinas filled with superyachts to help the wealthy
spend and unwind.
Prospects in Asia are
alluring at a time when the economies of Europe and the United States are weak.
Since the financial crisis, regulatory pressures in the West and a crackdown on
offshore centers have hastened the pace of family offices’ moving to Singapore,
as well as to Hong Kong.
“The families want to be
where the action is,” said Munish Dhall, a UBS executive director and head of
ultrahigh-net-worth offerings and client development. “They want a piece of the
economic pie.”
Big financial
institutions, feeling the pinch of a tougher investment banking climate and
higher capital requirements, are taking note.
UBS, the Swiss bank, has
set up a family office team that is seeking to cater to two dozen clients in
Asia who have assets of $200 million or more. Other global players, like Credit
Suisse, HSBC and RBC Wealth, are also courting family offices, along with DBS
Group, which is based in Singapore.
The Spinolas, whose
ancestors include crusaders during the Middle Ages, cardinals of the Holy Roman
Empire and influential figures in the politics, culture and prosperity of
Genoa, are one of those families.
Last year,
representatives of the family began setting up an office in Singapore to manage
their investments in the region, rather than using their Geneva operation,
Parly.
Parly Singapore is still
in an early stage, as it applies for licenses and tests its custom portfolio
management tools. The plan is to hire senior investment managers from top banks
during the next year, with 10 to 15 members of the team working under an
advisory fee model rather than on commission.
“We are a family
company, and the family is not involved in the business,” said Mr. Spinola, who
sits on a management committee with several relatives and now has permanent
resident status in Singapore. “We’re basically shareholders.”
By keeping family and
investment matters separate and allowing Parly managers to make decisions, he
said, “that is a way of differentiating risk.”
The Spinolas are joining
together with two other family offices to cut costs and create efficiencies.
Mr. Spinola would not
discuss the amount of investment in Parly Singapore, and neither would its
managing director, Roxanne Davies. But she did give a clue.
“A family office with
such a strategy can’t really exist — it is not economically feasible — without
half a billion,” Ms. Davies said.
Campden Wealth, a
financial advisory firm for family offices, counts about 2,500 family offices
around the world. In Asia, it says, there are 150 to 200, roughly half in
Australia and Japan, but the number is growing with the sharp increase in new
wealth in China, India and Southeast Asia.
A recent survey by
Campden and UBS showed that the amounts being managed by these family firms
ranged from $50 million to more than $1 billion, with an average return of 9.1
percent during the 12 months that ended in October 2011.
The goals for the
Spinolas and other family offices are simple: control their wealth, maximize
returns and minimize fees charged by money managers.
“Singapore is tightening
offshore rules, but it will continue to be a very attractive place for family
and investment offices,” said David Bain, Campden Wealth’s head of research.
“No government in the world is so committed to attracting the money of the
ultrahigh net worth.”
Wealthy families from
Europe are looking to set up shop in Asia because of the banking situation in
Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, said Donald Riegger, an expert on
family offices at Deloitte & Touche in Singapore.
“It’s picking up steam,”
he said. “If you’re a European looking for a better tax structure, Singapore
could work well.”
Mr. Spinola, who worked
at the Italian beverage maker Martini & Rossi and managed agricultural
firms in Argentina before setting up Parly in Geneva in 1993, is no stranger to
investing or to Asia.
Now he and his family
want a more direct link to how their money is managed in the region, although
success is not certain, given the volatility of markets and the variety of
political, investment and regulatory risks in many Asian countries.
“We are trying to move
away from hot money, high-frequency
trading and things that have price discovery that we just
cannot control,” said Ms. Davies, Parly Singapore’s managing director. “If we
are able to target single-digit returns of 6 to 7 percent annualized in today’s
market, we would think of ourselves as very lucky.”
Pending approval from
the authorities, she said, Parly will move the “centralized thinking process”
from Geneva to Singapore, which has been “very open to new ways of wealth
management and financial technology that surrounds it.”
Parly’s portfolio is
heavily weighted to equities, with investments mainly in energy, commodities,
health care and biotechnology.
In Asia, Ms. Davies
said, Parly is interested in opportunities in the consumer sector, Japanese
innovations and venture capital, especially in technology firms.
