The Malaysian Insight

FOREST City master developer Country Garden Pacificview Sdn Bhd (CGPV) has brushed off concerns about the impact of China’s capital controls, saying the project in the Johor Straits is going smoothly.

CGPV chief strategic officer Yu Runze said apart from marketing residential projects, Forest City was also trying to attract more businesses, reiterating previous announcements of an agreement with a Chinese medicine hospital, as well as plans to bring in tourism players and data centres.

“We are doing fine. The project is going very smoothly right now.

“Aside from China and Malaysia, we are opening 10 sales galleries all around the world, with the focus being Asean, India and the Middle East.

“We are trying to bring this project to the global market,” he said at the 20th National Housing and Property Summit 2017 in Bandar Sunway.

As part of China’s new capital control policy, the government, in December, announced that Chinese citizens were allowed an annual foreign exchange quota of US$50,000 (RM211, 420), but they must sign a pledge that they would not use the quota for offshore property investment.

Violators will be put on a watchlist, denied access to foreign currency for three years and subjected to a money laundering investigation.

It was reported that the policy was expected to threaten residential property sales around the world, especially in the Iskandar region, where Chinese financing comprised as much as 90% of developments.

Yu said the company, which was the builder and operator of Forest City, was looking to create more jobs in the area, which would see four artificial islands in the Johor Straits facing Singapore and house 700,000 people upon completion.

“We want to create jobs there. So far, we are making good progress. In my company, for example, we have around 600 employees and 75% of them are Malaysian.

“In the future, in three years, we are trying to offer 600 jobs to local graduates, so you can see that we are making good progress in terms of localisation, and I think those people are trying to create that demand for the residents there as well.”

In August, Yu was reported as saying more than 40% of the capital expenditure had gone towards paying local firms.

He said the company had spent RM4.7 billion for the services of local consultancy, law and architecture firms, as well as construction materials.

He said the Chinese developer would also spend RM5 billion this year building a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, another hotel, new infrastructure and a factory to manufacture ready-to-assemble concrete structures, such as staircases, beams, columns and walls. – October 5, 2017.