Image source: China Visual

BEIJING, August 9 (TMTPOST) -- Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group, in partnership with a consortium of companies led by Singapore-based real estate firm Perennial Holdings, have received government approval to build a 305-meter-high mixed-use skyscraper in Singapore's central business district, Sandton Avenue.

The proposed structure will surpass the existing 284-metre Guoco Tower to become the tallest building in Singapore in 2028.

According to the Business Times, the Urban Redevelopment Authority approved the proposal to redevelop the AXA Tower at 8 Shenton Way into a 63-storey mixed-use skyscraper, in Tanjong Pagar, near the Raffles Place central business district. The building has plans to have retail stores, restaurants, offices, hotels, and residential units, with up to 148,450 square metres in total space.

The project is supported by the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore's Central Business District Incentive Scheme. The scheme allows the Central Business District to increase the floor area ratio by 25% to 30% when converting older office buildings.

Alibaba went overseas in 2013 and has been gradually gathering momentum in business in Southeast Asia, with Singapore becoming an important portal for overseas business. Alibaba's cloud computing and artificial intelligence technology company Ali Cloud established its regional headquarters in Singapore in 2015, and now has cloud data centers in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and many other countries.

In 2016, Alibaba bought a stake in Lazada, the Southeast Asian e-commerce platform, and also invested in Tokopedia, the largest e-commerce platform in Indonesia. Tokopedia has merged with Gojek, a ride-hailing service platform, to become GoTo, the Southeast Asian Internet giant in 2021.

Alibaba's international retail commerce business primarily consists of Lazada, Speedy Business, Trendyol and Daraz. The company’s latest financial report showed that orders from Lazada in Southeast Asia grew 10% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2022. Revenue from the international wholesale business grew 12% year-over-year and Alibaba.com's completed transactions grew 16% year-over-year. Ali Cloud's total revenue after offsetting the impact of cross-segment transactions was approximately 17.685 billion yuan ($2.62billion), an increase of 10% year-over-year.