THE main developer of Iskandar Malaysia, one of the largest integrated developments in the country, expects to tender out RM2 billion (S$815 billion) worth of development work over the next 12 months, president and chief executive officer of Iskandar Investment Arlida Ariff said yesterday.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Ninth Forbes Global Chief Executive Conference yesterday, Ms Arlida said that the tenders would comprise RM1 billion worth of infrastructure projects under the Ninth Malaysia Plan and another RM1 billion worth of other infrastructure and construction projects. ‘These infrastructure and construction projects will likely take 6-24 months to be completed,’ she told reporters.
The statements illustrate the federal government’s continued commitment to a project dreamed up by former premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and intended to kick-start the economy of southern Peninsular Malaysia.
In terms of scale, it is certainly one of the country’s mega-projects with a total investment of RM398 billion, with RM46 billion coming in the first five years and the remainder over the next 15.
As a concept, Iskandar should fly. It envisaged the development of education, healthcare, manufacturing, leisure, service and residential facilities – mostly on a greenfield basis over 4,450 hectares of land situated next to a land-starved country with one of the highest per capita incomes in Asia. It has worked in other places with similar proximities – Hong Kong and Shenzhen, for example – and had succeeded spectacularly
Malaysia was hoping to create an ‘instant’ growth centre much like it tried to do with its Multimedia Super-Corridor (or MSC, its version of Silicon Valley) to emulate other places where growth evolved naturally and over time.
For this to happen, it had to attract foreign investors, and for that to happen, Kuala Lumpur suspended affirmative action policy requirements – where investors have to satisfy ethnic quota conditions, for example – for a raft of sectors from services to logistics.
It happened for the MSC under former premier Mahathir Mohamad and it happened for the Iskandar region though his successor Mr Abdullah.
The MSC has not been a runaway success as many had originally anticipated but it hasn’t been a failure either, with quite a few big international names setting up shop there amid considerable foreign investment. In Iskandar’s case, the global financial crisis may be impeding its take-off where foreign investors are concerned but Kuala Lumpur is stepping into the breach.
According to Ms Arlida, it’s been a case of so far, so good. She said yesterday that the infrastructure work would include infrastructure in Medini and EduCity as well as residential units for students in Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia. The developer currently owns 2 per cent of the whole Iskandar region, which encompasses 2,200 square kilometres of land.
Since its inception three years ago, the Iskandar region has attracted US$13 billion worth of foreign direct investments, Ms Arlida said. On LegoLand Malaysia, the region’s largest theme park, the company expects to generate RM1 billion worth of spillover projects involving two hotels, one shopping mall and one office building.
‘We are talking to potential partners and hope to announce three more partners by the end of this year,’ she said. LegoLand Malaysia, the first LegoLand theme park in Asia, will be built on 22 hectares and is expected to be completed by April 2012.
Source : Business Times – 1 Oct 2009
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