GADANG HOPEFUL OF WINNING 3 WORK PACKAGES
Company has also submitted bids for other projects worth over RM1b, says MD
GADANG Holdings Bhd is banking on the Sabah portion of the PanBorneo Highway project to beef up its order book and earnings. Managing director (construction) Khew Check Kiet said the group was bidding for three packages.
It will also participate in other open tenders for the highway project.
Works Minister Baru Bian told the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 14 that the government was expected to award three work packages for the highway project in the first quarter of next year.
He had said the packages would involve upgrading works at the Telupid and Beluran exits spanning almost 60km, adding that the total cost was RM925 million.
He added that the remaining 20 packages were expected to be tendered in the 12th Malaysia Plan from 2021 to 2025. Khew said the market was challenging. “There are not many jobs in the country and we have many players bidding for the same projects. As a Bursa Malaysia-listed construction group, we have to constantly replenish our order book.
“We are hopeful about the Pan-Borneo Highway project and we will know next year if we have won any of the packages that we are bidding for,” he said after a shareholders’ meeting, here, yesterday.
Gadang’s order book stood at RM1.14 billion in August.
This included the remaining work worth RM588.6 million for package V206 of the Mass Rapid Transit Sungai Buloh–Serdang–Putrajaya line, the RM215.2 million (tunnel, steel bridge) package for the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX), the RM28.4 million package for the Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project in Johor and construction of a RM312.5 million hospital in Cyberjaya.
Khew said Gadang had submitted bids worth more than RM1 billion for a kiosk in TRX, a hospital project in Pasir Gudang, Johor, a 14km highway in Penang and a bridge in Sarawak.
Gadang executive director Kok Pei Ling said the group was also eyeing contracts for the RM44 billion East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project.
“We have been shortlisted as one of the contractors for the ECRL and we think there is a higher chance of winning as the government has announced that 40 per cent of the civil works will be awarded to local contractors,” said Kok.
Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd and China Communications Construction Company Ltd had announced more than 1,000 local firms were eyeing packages for the civil works portion of the project.