| Money is flowing into Asia's retail property sector but industry players say capital inflows would have been even greater if not for the lack of reliable, industrywide data on sales and volume transactions.
They were speaking at the 2006 Asia Expo, an event organised by the International Council of Shopping Centers.
Global real estate investors are keen to buy a piece of Asia's retail action.
Stephen Weaver, Senior VP, Asian Development, Venetian Macau, Sands, said: "What we've already proved in Macau, there seems to be a groundswell of interest from other developers to include retail components within their projects. At another level, we've seen a strong demonstration of interest from global real estate investors into buying the end product from developers in this market."
Latest figures show that capital flows into Asia's real estate sector amounted to US$180 billion in 2004.
This is some 10 percent lower than investors' commitment to Europe, which amounted to US$198 billion.
But the International Council of Shopping Centers is warning that the lack of data on sales and transaction volumes for properties and retail spaces across Asia can limit capital inflows.
Michael Kercheval, President and CEO, International Council of Shopping Centers, ICSC, said: "So the big need is to consolidate that information and create these industry benchmarks. Then an investor can compare a project in Singapore with a project in China. Or a project in China with a project in Europe. And that's really what the industry is looking for in terms of expanding the transparency and expanding the volume of research data that's available in this part of the world."
But the council says pooling such data is a challenge as companies tend to avoid sharing proprietary data.
It says retail markets in North America took 20 years to develop the trust needed to collate such data.
Still, it expects newer markets such as those in Asia to come forward more quickly because of the lure of investment dollars.
Mr Kercheval said: "It's really a level of trust within the market. And you're asking competitors to share data with competitors. And the way you do it is through an association like ICSC where everybody agrees that each of them will contribute their data into a blind pool. Nobody gets to see the individual data, all they get to see if a consolidated benchmark. And it's not easy. It'll largely be the capital market that are going to encourage, if not force, these property owners to participate."
The international council is basing its flagship Asia Expo event in Singapore for the next three years.
It says part of the reason for that is to encourage more Pan-Asian initiatives and discussions among retail developers and investors worldwide.
Event organisers say they are seeing a more international crowd now that the show is back in Singapore.
They say about 30 percent were local participants when ICSC Asia Expo rotated about various Asian venues.
This compared to only 16 percent local representation in Singapore.
The event, which attracted a record high of over 500 registered delegates this year, aims to facilitate cross-border business among retail real estate professionals. - CNA/ch
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