‘We are helping locals, developers’

Firstly, we can reclaim the area from zero and build it into an international city. Where in Johor can we obtain 7,500 acres of land to develop into an international city?

Secondly, we are building in shallow waters and there are no fishes there, so we are not endangering any species. The area is wasted if we don’t do anything. We are developing a new city, an international city for the world. cent of the people working in Forest City are Malaysians. This includes professionals and nonprofessionals, and they come from different states.

By the end of 2018, more than 90 per cent of the people employed here will be locals from various backgrounds.

The sultan of Johor wants to see local participation in the job creation here. Because we are using IBS (the Industrialised Building System construction method), we will have more than 90 per cent of the workforce here comprising locals. The other half bought it under the Malaysia My Second Home programme.

We are targeting people and corporations from all over the world, including Malaysia. We are currently talking to a huge corporation in Germany to invest in Forest City. We also have Middle Eastern and Russian property buyers.

Last year, we brought in around 160,000 tourists to Malaysia because of Forest City. Per capita, each person spent RM3,000 to RM5,000. This year, too, we are seeing positive numbers.