Singapore, One-Time Medalist, Invites Sports Bids
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Singapore, which has one Olympic medal to its name, invited bids to build an S$800 million ($479.5 million) national sports complex, the country's biggest contract of its kind, in an attempt to foster more athletes.
The site, spanning an area the size of 48 soccer pitches, will feature a 55,000-capacity stadium, a swimming arena with 6,000 seats, as well as education, research and training centers, Singapore's Sports Council said in a statement today. Bids must be submitted by March 2006. A winner will be named mid-2007.
The city-state, which won an Olympic silver in 1960, is taking steps to improve its record. It opened a S$75 million sports school in April last year and offered citizenship to China-born table-tennis player Li Jiawei and Indonesia-born badminton player Ronald Susilo. The Sports Council said today that Singaporeans needed a new mentality.
``As a country, we are clearly known as a people who like to work hard,'' Alex Chan, chairman of the Sports Council, told reporters. ``Playing hard should be part of the equation. We have to come round to that.''
Chan said he hopes Singapore will be able to host the South East Asian Games after 2011, when the complex opens. To have any chance of succeeding, the site must ignite a passion for sport, which he said doesn't yet exist among the country's 4.3 million population.
`Powerhouses'
The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, the top three medal winners in the 2005 South East Asian Games, have become regional sporting ``powerhouses,'' said Oon Jin Teik, chief executive of the Singapore Sports Council. Singapore ranked sixth in the Games, one above Myanmar.
``We are way behind the competition,'' he said. Singapore's counterparts in the region were ``a million miles'' ahead, he said.
Singapore proposed the idea of a so-called Sports Hub in February 2003. At the time, the government put the cost at S$650 million. Chan today said a figure of S$800 million would be ``reasonable.''
Asking private companies, either in the form of a group or a single contractor, to build the complex offered Singapore taxpayers the best value for money, said Chan.
This type of project, known as a Public-Private Partnership, was born in the U.K. in the 1990s, said Mark Rathbone, an associate director at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which is advising the Singapore government on the process.
Britain's Conservative governments under Margaret Thatcher and John Major needed to invest in railways, roads and hospitals but didn't have the funds. Bringing in private companies to foot the bill and shoulder any risk of failure was the solution, Rathbone said.
Under the terms of the bid for the Singapore sports complex, the winning group will design, build, finance and operate the site. After the center opens, the Singapore government will repay the group's costs over a 25-year period, Rathbone said.
