8 GLOBAL FIRMS VIE FOR BANDAR MALAYSIA JOB

KUALA LUMPUR: Eight companies have submitted their proposals to be Bandar Malaysia’s master developer, said Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani.

“By the end of this month or early next month, the committee (1Malaysia Development Bhd and the Prime Minister’s Office) will go through the submissions,” he said at Invest Malaysia 2017, here, yesterday.

According to a Straits Times report yesterday, there was stiff competition between China’s state-owned entities and two Japanese giants, Daiwa House Industry Group and Mitsui Fudosan Co Ltd.

The report also claimed the government had received nine pitches — two from the Japanese firms and the rest from China’s state-owned entities.

The Chinese entities are China State Construction Engineering Co Ltd, China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), China Gezhouba Group Corp, Greentown Overseas Ltd, China Resources Ltd, China Vanke and Australia’s John Holland, which is wholly-owned by CCCC.

Sources revealed that bids received featured development plans valued between US$7 billion and US$10.5 billion (RM30 billion and RM44.9 billion).

According to the report, several of the Chinese bidders had indicated they would hire renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to design the integrated township.

Bandar Malaysia was originally awarded to China Railway Engineering Corp and Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Bhd in December 2015, but the joint venture’s alleged failure to meet key conditions prompted the government to cancel the contract in May, said the report.

Bandar Malaysia’s request for proposal exercise was open only to Fortune 500 companies with combined revenue of RM50 billion or more in the past three years. Ayisy Yusof