KUALA LUMPUR: Iskandar Malaysia region will be extended to include parts of Kota Tinggi, Kluang and Pontian, for land development and modern agriculture.
Iskandar Regional Development Authority’s (Irda) members of authority has approved the proposal, which will see the total area being expanded from 2,217 km square to 4,749 km square.
Irda chief executive Datuk Ismail Ibrahim said with the larger area of coverage, Iskandar Malaysia should be able to offer more land for development at affordable cost, and at the same time bringing modern agriculture as one of its new promoted sectors.
He said Iskandar Malaysia can also offer job opportunities in the field of agriculture to the youth, especially with the approval of the region’s new extended land area.
“This should be allocated for agriculture industry and not only for local consumption, but also for export purposes,” Ismail said in a statement.
“This is where Iskandar Malaysia aligns with the nation’s vision of narrowing the income gap as IRDA has already envisioned an inclusive Iskandar Malaysia through equitability, increased purchasing power, productivity and taking into consideration the increase in household income as one of the indicators to measure economic prosperity.”
Iskandar Malaysia’s development region currently encompasses an area of 2,217 square kilometres which is three times the size of Singapore and two times the size of Hong Kong.
Irda said Iskandar Malaysia is confident that the region’s inflow of investments from domestic and foreign investors will continue to grow from this year onward.
This will enhance the whole eco-system in Iskandar Malaysia as the spill-over effects will have a higher impact on the region's economy and the rakyat, it said.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, who is also Irda co-chairman, said the progress Iskandar Malaysia had steadily charted since 2006 has been truly spectacular and will be key in helping Malaysia to reclaim its leadership as the ‘Asian Tiger’.
“As the agency driving the development of Iskandar Malaysia, I remain optimistic on the role and responsibilities of Irda in supporting the development of the State of Johor and the nation’s agendas,” he said.
In terms of economic growth, Irda said Iskandar Malaysia recorded committed investments of RM32.23 billion in 2018, where RM22.03 billion represent investments that had been realised.
This contributed to the total cumulative committed investment of RM285.34 billion from 2006 to December 31, 2018.
To date, local investors contributed RM194.81 billion (62 per cent) to the total cumulative committed investments while the balance RM90.51 billion (38 per cent) were contributed by foreign investors.
The top five countries with the highest cumulative committed investments into Iskandar Malaysia from 2006 to December 2018 were China, Singapore, the United States, Japan and Spain.
From 2006 until 2018, the services sector namely tourism, education, finance, healthcare, creative and logistics recorded a total of RM28.9 billion which includes emerging technology.