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Day: 6 October 2016

Property prices in Principality jump 25% over 5 years

by: Cassandra Tanti
06/10/2016

Odeon Tower, one of world's most expensive properties. Photo; Odeon
Odeon Tower, one of world’s most expensive properties. Photo: Odeon

House prices in Monaco jumped by more than a quarter over the past five years as the tiny principality continues to attract wealthy buyers from around the world with its low taxes and glamorous lifestyle.
Average prices have increased by 27.8 percent between 2010 and 2015 due to high demand and limited supply, according to a report released on Thursday by global real estate consultancy Knight Frank. Last year alone, prices rose by around 10 percent.
“Prices are among the highest in the world, with its super-prime now touching €100,000 ($112,050) per square meter,” said Edward de Mallet Morgan, head of Knight Frank’s Monaco department.
However, while inventory is still tight, Monaco’s constrained property market improved slightly last year when 195 new apartments housed within three new prime developments – Tour Odéon, Le Meridien and La Petite Afrique, entered the market.
They are all being targeted squarely at the billionaire market. At Tour Odéon, for example, a penthouse is up for sale for an estimated €300 million ($336 million), making it one of the most expensive homes for sale in the world.
The next single largest contribution to housing stock will be the construction of Testimonio II, which will provide some 150 apartments when completed in 2021.
The report also found that Monaco’s buyer profile is shifting. Not only is the age of buyers lower than it was a decade ago, the nationality of buyers can increasingly be defined according to their purchasing power. British, Italians, Swiss and northern European buyers were active in the $10 million ($11.2 million) and under market last year.
Above the €10 million threshold, Russian buyers, previously absent, are house-hunting once more, joined by Middle Eastern and Chinese buyers. (Sources: Mansion Global, Property Wire)
 

Government offers free SMS alerts for major risks and emergencies

by: Cassandra Tanti
06/10/2016

interiorministerA civil defence exercise, named RICHTER, was held jointly Wednesday in Monaco and in the Alpes-Maritimes to evaluate the response capabilities of the two countries’ Crisis Management centres, led on the Monaco side by the Department of the Interior. The exercise required no field engagement in terms of personnel or equipment and, in Monaco, only the National Crisis Management Centre (CNGC) was activated.
The Department of Animation (DIRANIM), based at the Prefecture in the Alpes-Maritimes, was responsible to detail the progress of a disaster, in this case a major earthquake, and follow the actions implemented by the CNGC’s different cells in responding to the crisis.
Speaking to the Monaco press afterward,Interior Minister, Patrice Cellario, reiterated that the exercise was “testing procedures in place to manage the phenomena of crisis and coordinate the Monegasque and French services”. He added, “The outcome of the day’s exercise was very positive. The teams really mobilised, communication worked well internally and with the French services, and the different cells showed they know how to handle a crisis situation.”
Monaco Life asked the Minister whether the government has a specific mechanism in place during an emergency to communicate with the 100 nationalities living in Monaco, many of whom do not speak French, despite it being Monaco’s first language. “There are two things to remember about an exercise like today. First, it’s a test for the administration on how to mobilise services – the police and fire department, the Red Cross, hospitals and concessionary services, like electricity and transport – during a crisis and how to administer these services to manage the city. And secondly, how to handle the crisis itself.”
Addressing how to get the message across to Monaco’s non-French speaking community, Minister Cellario told Monaco Life, “With the government’s social media, we tweet in English and French. Also, we have an SMS alert system, which for the moment is in French, but we are thinking of adding English so people could receive, for example, pollution alerts, weather alerts or earthquake alerts in both languages.”
Minister Cellario encourages the Anglophone community to visit the Public Service section of the gouv.mc website (where information is provided in English) and to sign up for the free Monaco Alert Service to receive an email or SMS in the event of a major risk, explaining the necessary precautions to take or emergency measures put in place.
READ ALSO: Minster of Health and Social Affairs, Stéphane Valeri: the real deal

MonacoUSA tries out rowing team at Yacht Club

by: Cassandra Tanti
06/10/2016

Jean-François Gourdon, President of the Société Nautique de Monaco, gives MonacoUSA members a rowing lesson.
Jean-François Gourdon, President of the Société Nautique de Monaco, gives MonacoUSA members a rowing lesson.

It was all hands on deck, or in this case, oars, at the Monaco Yacht Club on Tuesday as the MonacoUSA networking cocktail spotlighted the Société Nautique de Monaco (SNM).
From 6 pm to 8 pm, members worked off calories on a special rowing simulator while the more daring tested out a rowing scull at the Kelly jetty, under the guidance of Jean-François Gourdon, President of the SNM.
The Kelly jetty is named after Jack Kelly, Princess Grace’s father and one of the most accomplished American rowers in the history of the sport, winning an unprecedented three Olympic Gold Medals. Illustrating the historic tie between the Principality and sculling, Monaco hosts the Challenge Prince Albert II every February.
Monaco’s rowing club, which won the world championship in two classes in Lima, Peru, last year – Quentin Antognelli and Giuseppe Alberti picked up gold in the Men’s Coastal Double Sculls, while Mathias Raymond, Gaétan Delhon William Ader, Maxime Maillet, coxed by Pierre Zervos, won the Men’s Coastal Quadruple Coxed, just eight seconds ahead of an Italian team – will welcome 720 rowers from 31 countries for the World Rowing Coastal Championships from October 21 to 23.
Special thanks to Annette Anderson, MonacoUSA’s ever-energetic director, for another great evening, especially as she was run off her feet Tuesday morning with the MacMillan World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, a cancer fundraiser, at Stars’n’Bars.
First published October 5, 2016.
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Prince Albert visits Russian president at Kremlin

by: Cassandra Tanti
06/10/2016

HSH Prince Albert with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Thursday
HSH Prince Albert with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Thursday. picture: Twitter Monaco Government

The Sputnik news agency has reported that HSH Prince Albert and Russian President Vladimir Putin have met in Moscow to mark the positive development of bilateral relations.
Sputnik, the state-owned and operated online news in Russia, reported that Putin said: “I am very glad that we began your visit with a milestone event – with opening an exhibition devoted to the ties between Monaco and Russia. We saw at first hand how long and how constructive relations between Russia and Monaco have been developing.”
The president was speaking after the two leaders visited an exhibition entitled “Romanovs-Grimaldi: Three Centuries of History” in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
“Now, 10 years after reestablishment of diplomatic relations between our countries, I mark with a great pleasure an excellent level of cooperation between Russia and Monaco in various spheres. I am sure that Moscow shares this point of view and is going to develop such cooperation,” Prince Albert II said, according to Sputnik.
A trade mission by Monaco’s Economic Board coincides with the Sovereign’s visit to Moscow. The Prince was due to leave Moscow on Thursday evening.

French TV station hacked in “unacceptable attack on freedom of expression”

by: Cassandra Tanti
06/10/2016

cybersecurityA cybersecurity conference in Monaco has heard that hackers who succeeded in taking down a major French television station last year are still making efforts to break into French government computers, a senior cybersecurity official said Wednesday.

Guillaume Poupard, who heads the National Agency of Security and Information Systems (ANSSI), told the Associated Press that sensors deployed at French government ministries routinely pick up the electronic signatures associated with the group.
“The group behind it – and I don’t know who it is, that’s not my role – is proving very active,” he said. “We see them. And we stop them.”
The April 8, 2015, attack interrupted nearly a dozen channels belonging to TV5 and packed its social media sites with propaganda for the Islamic State group. The cyber attack just months after the Charlie Hebdo atrocity caused considerable consternation among French leaders and journalists.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls at the time condemned what he called an “unacceptable attack on freedom of expression”. Some journalists described the hack as an “unprecedented act of cyberterrorism”.
But two months later, L’Express magazine reported that French investigators believed a Russian group masquerading as Islamic State loyalists had carried out the hack. Mr Poupard would not be drawn on the thesis that Moscow is behind these sophisticated attacks, but added that the attack on TV5 “looked a lot like” the cyber-espionage operation launched in May 2015 against Germany’s parliament. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency blamed that hack squarely on Moscow.
Monaco has recently announced that its own cyber security agency has started work to help protect the Principality against security breaches.

Life-saving procedures made possible thanks to volunteers

by: Cassandra Tanti
06/10/2016
Photo: ©Direction de la Communication/Manuel Vitali
Photo: ©Direction de la Communication/Manuel Vitali

The Department of International Cooperation (DCI), which coordinates the efforts of Monaco Collectif Humanitaire (MCH), on Tuesday brought together project volunteers to thank them for their exemplary commitment that has enabled life-saving operations for 300 children in the Principality.

The evening was attended by the Monaco Red Cross, the NGO Rencontres Africaines, the Cardio-Thoracic Centre and the Princess Grace Hospital.
The DCI wanted to meet and bring together host families, doctors, and those responsible for administrative formalities. These volunteers are the links that enable MCH to exist.
The goal of the MCH is to operate in Monaco on children from developing countries whose illnesses, mainly cardiac and sometimes orthopaedic, are not treatable in their countries of origin.

READ ALSO: Host families ease pain for sick kids far from home