Organise investment roadshows regularly

10 August 2010 , By The Star

A majority of people in Hong Kong including property developers and investors know little of Iskandar Malaysia despite its inception four years ago.

Chinese Research Institute of Construction Management (Criocm) president Prof Edwin Chan Hon Wan said concerted effort must be taken by the stakeholders of Iskandar to better promote the economic growth corridor in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong developers and investors are always on the lookout for investment opportunities abroad due to constraints in Hong Kong itself,’’ he said.

Chan said road shows on the investment opportunities should be organised regularly to attract potential investors and international fund managers based in Hong Kong to come to Iskandar.

He said this at the ‘Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate: Towards Sustainable Development of International Metropolis’ symposium jointly organised by Criocm and Iskandar Malaysia Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Research Centre (IMrec).

Chan was surprised to see the vast opportunities that Iskandar had to offer to foreign investors but said nothing much had been done to woo them.

“Unlike Chinese investors from mainland China who know about Iskandar, the same cannot be said for their Hong Kong counterparts,’’ he said.

Chan is also a professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Department of Building and Real Estate and Board of Local Affairs chairman.

Iskandar Malaysia, located in the southernmost part of Johor spans over 2,217 sq km and is three times bigger than Singapore.

It is Malaysia’s first economic growth corridor which was launched on Nov 4, 2006

Other growth corridors in the country are the Northern Corridor Economic Region, East Coast Economic, Sabah Development Corridor and Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy.

Iskandar Regional Development Authority (Irda) chief operating officer Hilmi Mohd Nashir said Irda would be looking at Hong Kong as the new potential source of investment.

He said it would be reviewing its strategies from time to time to attract investors to Iskandar and would not totally depend on investments from Middle East and European countries.

Iskandar has attracted cumulative investments totalling RM62.32bil up to June 30, 2010, surpassing the 2010 target of RM47bil.