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Chairman's Statement

My fellow shareholders,

2006 was an eventful year for our company. In April, we completed our restructuring exercise, bringing our
shareholders and our 16 different companies together under the umbrella of Gallant Venture. We were lucky enough to constitute an impressive Board of Directors and Board of Advisors who successfully led us to our admission to the Singapore Exchange’s SESDAQ in June.

Post restructuring, we began the reorganization of our company along four major lines of business, namely
Utilities, Industrial Parks, Resort Operations, and Property Development. All of our business segments
made excellent progress during the course of the year.

The results of our Utilities business showed improvement in 2006 as a consequence of an approximately $50-million investment program we started in the 4th quarter of 2005 to convert a significant portion of our electricity generation to use natural gas. Today, we produce almost 80% of our billable electrical
power using natural gas for which we have a fixed price contract, thus allowing us to sell a significant portion of our power without being affected by global energy prices.

Our Industrial Parks business produced steady results in a competitive environment, with the bulk of our tenants satisfied with our ability to provide high quality infrastructure in a lower cost setting in close proximity to Singapore and its extremely efficient port facilities. While we faced increasing competition from other low cost environments such as Vietnam and China, we were able to leverage on our superior infrastructure to retain and attract tenants.

In 2006 our Resort Operations business carried over 320,000 visitors to Bintan via our ferries. Our services also benefited from the multi-million dollar refurbishment of the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal in Singapore. In 2007, we look forward to finalizing our orders for our new generation ferries which we hope will shorten the travel time from Singapore to Bintan to around 35 minutes.

Our Property Development business gained traction in 2006, with the signing of a number of contracts, including the two larger contracts previously announced which has now been branded as the exciting $1 billion Bintan Treasure Bay Development, as well as two smaller contracts at $75 per square meter which represents a significant premium to our carrying cost. These sales represent revenues of just under $36 million, and will be complemented with the launch of our 1,500-hectare Lagoi Bay Development in the first half of 2007.

There has been increasing attention on our businesses as a result of the new Special Economic Zone (SEZ) initiatives by the Indonesian and Singaporean governments. The framework was laid out in mid-2006 during a signing ceremony witnessed by the President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. We are hoping to see the final details of this bilateral agreement soon.

In connection with the SEZ, we had high profile visits from leaders such as Indonesian President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew,
Singapore Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, and many other ministers from both Indonesia and Singapore.

With majority of our operations located adjacent to relatively low income areas, we believe that we must
share our success with the local community. Our community development efforts continue to provide
over 1,000 scholarships and bursary awards every year to students in the Bintan and Batam community. We are also proud that one of the students we sponsored to attend the SHATEC (Singapore Hotel and Tourism Education Center) was awarded the top prize. We have continued providing medical outpatient treatments to more than 600 local villagers during the course of our regular sponsored doctor visits, in addition to the annual contributions of gifts and building programs to the local schools and religious institutions.

I know that many of you have yet to visit Bintan. As it forms one of the important parts of our Company’s
future, I encourage you to visit the island, and see the quality of the land we own and the types of
developments we are working on. To make it easier for you to do this, we enclose a travel voucher in this Annual Report to Shareholders, which can be exchanged for a round trip off-peak Singapore-Bintan ferry ticket for each registered shareholder. We are confident that our businesses are strong and will continue to develop in the next years. We thank all of you for your continued support.

 

Mr Lim Hock San
Non-Executive Chairman
Independent Director
Mr Eugene Park
Executive Director
Chief Executive Officer

 

 

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