Singapore’s Keppel keen on new Vietnam opportunities: executive

Keppel is one of the most prominent Singaporean investors in Vietnam. Why are you looking to target the country for further growth?

In line with Keppel’s Vision 2030 strategy, we are driving the group’s transformation to be a global asset manager and operator focused on investing in and creating sustainability-related solutions.

Keppel, as a group, has been present in Vietnam for over three decades. We are excited by the many long-term opportunities offered by Vietnam.

What sectors is Keppel looking at to invest more in Vietnam?

In urban development, Keppel Land has grown to become one of the largest foreign real estate investors and contributors to urban development in the country, with more than 20 projects and total registered investment capital of about $3.5 billion to date.

Keppel Land is driving a sustainable urban renewal, or SUR, initiative with a mission to retrofit, future-proof and extend the lifespan of older commercial buildings in Vietnam. We are looking to implement SUR technologies at our projects and will work with best-in-class local and international partners to incorporate innovative urban solutions such as smart security, smart mobility and environmental infrastructure solutions into our projects to make them more energy-saving.

Leveraging synergies of Keppel Group, Keppel Land is actively working with Keppel Capital to invest in new opportunities.

Last year, Keppel Land, together with Keppel Vietnam Fund and a co-investor of KVF, entered an agreement with Phu Long Real Estate Joint Stock Company and its subsidiary to acquire a 49% stake in three residential land plots in the Mailand Hanoi City project in Hoai Duc district of Hanoi. This is a prime example of how we leverage the group’s strengths to bring in additional foreign capital and co-investors to help fund projects.

Keppel Land is also working closely with partners in Vietnam to contribute to the country’s sustainable development. In February 2023, our company signed a memorandum of understanding with Vietnamese company Khang Dien Group to collaborate in developing residential projects and sustainable urban developments in Ho Chi Minh City.

Recently, we also embarked on a partnership with Panasonic, which will leverage Keppel Land’s deep experience in smart and sustainable urban space solutions, as well as Panasonic’s leading expertise in smart electronics to explore the development of a suite of solutions for sustainable urbanization, spanning smart mobility, smart community and environmental solutions. The solutions are intended to be applied across Keppel Land’s projects in Vietnam.

Are there other possibilities to think of, beyond urban development?

Beyond urban development, we also see a lot of opportunities in Vietnam in terms of energy and environmental solutions.

Keppel Infrastructure is focused on scalable decarbonization solutions such as the electrification of vehicles and charging infrastructure, smart microgrids, sustainable energy-from-waste and Energy-as-a-Service, or EaaS, aimed at achieving large-scale greenhouse gas emissions reduction. It is developing and implementing EaaS, and a smart energy operations nerve center located at the Saigon Sports City project on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam is emerging as a promising data center market for multinational companies. Does Keppel have plans to catch potential opportunities offered by this promising market?

In the data center business, Keppel is uniquely positioned to provide integrated solutions for data centers from clean energy to asset development, operations and management to support customers' net-zero ambitions.

Our data center portfolio has a strong international presence with 32 data centers across Asia-Pacific and Europe. As demand for data storage increases in Vietnam, we see opportunities for Keppel to offer our integrated data center solutions to support Vietnam’s fast-growing digital economy.