SINGAPORE: Malaysia is set to break ground on its largest
real estate development, the multi-billion-dollar Bandar Malaysia project that
will showcase the country’s growing economic ties with China.
Businessman Tan Sri Lim Kang Hoo, whose Iskandar Waterfront
Holdings (IWH) secured rights in late 2015 as master developer of the project
together with China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC), noted that the initial
funding of RM10bil has already been lined up.
Ground works for infrastructure development will begin as
soon as “two or three loose ends” with the Malaysian and Chinese governments
are tied up in the coming weeks.
“Meeting the conditions, such as approvals from Bank Negara
for overseas loans and the degazetting of the land, has been very
time-consuming. But we are almost there,” Lim told The Straits Times last week
before heading off to Beijing to meet his Chinese bankers, who would provide
the bulk of the project’s initial financing.
Located on 196.7ha of prime real estate that currently
houses a military airstrip, army barracks and other military installations on
the fringes of Kuala Lumpur, Bandar Malaysia will be a purpose-built integrated
township featuring residential complexes, subterranean shopping malls, a
financial hub and indoor theme parks. It will also house the terminus for the
planned high-speed rail connecting Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
Separately, Beijing-based CREC is proposing to build an
RM8.3bil regional headquarters in the new township that promoters said would
generate a gross development value of RM160bil over a staggered construction timetable
that will stretch 25 years.
This massive undertaking comes at a time when there are
growing concerns that Kuala Lumpur could see a serious oversupply of commercial
property in the near future.
Just next door to Bandar Malaysia, developers have begun
work on a new financial district called the Tun Razak Exchange that will cover
roughly 28ha of prime real estate.