KUALA LUMPUR: Reliance Pacific Bhd (Reliance), a company engaged in hotel, property and tourism businesses, said its fiscal 2016/17 will improve partly driven by the launch of its Admiral Hill hotel project.
"The project, if it does take off, will be a very good project. We are planning to market it to foreigners," said Reliance chief executive officer Datin Irene Tan in a press conference after the company's annual general meeting.
One of the reasons Tan is aiming to market the hotel project to foreign investors is the weakening of the ringgit. Since June, the ringgit has weakened by about 18%. This means, investors are now able to buy the property with less greenback.
Admiral Hill project is divided into three phases. Phase one which has a gross development value of RM140 million, consists of 92 units of single storey home villas located in Port Dickson.
For the first quarter ended June 30, 2015, Reliance went into the red, with a 85 per cent drop to register a net loss of RM2.23 million from a net profit of RM323,000 a year before. However, its revenue saw a slight increase of 0.4 per cent to RM42.49 million from RM42.48 million in the previous year.
The net loss is mainly due to its hotel and tourism divisions. The hotel division recorded a drop in revenue by 16 per cent at RM9.2 million as compared to the previous year. The drop is due to cuts in corporate and government spendings, slower consumer consumption and drop in tourist arrival into Malaysia and poor market sentiments.
As for the tourism division, although it grew marginally to RM28.46 million, saw its net loss expanded to RM955,000, from RM364,000 the same quarter a year ago.
Meanwhile, the property division recorded a growth of 82 per cent at RM4.2 million due to the progressive billing for Desa Impian project at Johor. Tan added that the second phase of the Desa Impian project, which consists of shop houses, will be launched early next year.
"We feel the demand is there. We are confident that this would be well accepted. Zone Two should be launched at fourth quarter of current financial year, around January to March 2016," Tan said.
Moving forward, the company also hopes to improve its tourism division's business by focusing on attracting foreign tourists to Malaysia.