CAPITALAND Ltd rose for a second day in Singapore trading, rebounding from its worst slump in more than six years on optimistic expansion that fast-growing markets like India will help shield it from slowing growth back home.

Shares of Singapore's biggest developer rose 24 cents, or 4.4 percent, to S$5.66 (US$3.9) at 11:49am local time. The stock fell 8.3 percent on January 21, the biggest one day drop since September 21, 2001. Singapore stocks rose for the first time in four days yesterday after the US Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate to revive growth in Singapore's biggest export market.

CapitaLand yesterday announced plans to build 15 shopping malls worth S$2.12 billion in India, expanding into a market in which real estate companies raised a record US$4 billion in share sales last year. Brokerages including Macquarie Group Ltd and JPMorgan Securities Inc said CapitaLand is their favorite property stock in Singapore.

"We like CapitaLand," Macquarie Group analysts Soong Tuck Yin and Patrick Yau wrote in a report yesterday, adding that the developer may gain from its "property asset management business, the serviced-apartment business as well as the higher margin residential business in Singapore, China and Australia."

CapitaLand, Singapore's biggest shopping mall operator, formed a joint venture in 2006 with Pantaloon Retail India Ltd, India's biggest supermarket operator by market value. The developer also expanded into serviced apartments and other real estate projects in the country.

India's economy is poised to grow at least nine percent for a third year.

CapitaLand also has retail assets in markets such China, Japan and Malaysia.

City Developments Ltd, Singapore's second biggest property firm, rose 42 cents, or 3.9 percent, to S$11.24. Keppel Land Ltd, the third largest, added 12 cents, or 2.1 percent, to S$5.79, its first gain in four days.

CapitaLand said yesterday it has the "skill sets" to increase the value of projects and sell them.