PENANG’s ability to attract corporations in the past does not have anything to do with the Bayan Lepas reclamation, or Penang South reclamation.
Seri Tanjung Pinang is a good example to disprove the claim that reclamation will lead to investments.
The Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone succeeded not because of reclamation, but because of exemptions from income and import taxes.
This is why manufacturers leaving China have not turned to Malaysia as other countries have also offered income and import tax benefits.
High-end manufacturers are going to Singapore and Taiwan, while low-end ones go to Thailand and Vietnam.
Malaysia is going backwards by burdening investors with more rules and higher costs.
Penang is going backwards by thinking only about a narrow stretch of expensive real estate, banking on the hope that the reclaimed land will sell at a high price.
But the other side of the coin for high price is high cost, the death knell for sustainable technology development.
The high-cost, poorly thought- out Penang Transport Master Plan, which includes the Light Rail Transit but does not include efforts to provide an extensive bus network, will lead to rising living costs in Penang.
Reports that private groups are proposing to build an airport on the mainland, although quickly denied as a rumour by the Penang government, shows that there is land available for development on the mainland.
No matter how many hectares are reclaimed, foreign technology companies will not come if our workers’ living costs keep rising and our economic regulation is not freed.
Local technology companies cannot grow either.
Silicon Valley developed just outside of San Francisco, before it grew big and re-invaded the city, raising property prices.
But the Penang government wants to do it backwards by developing a narrow stretch of the island, hike costs and chase away technology firms.
“Build and they will come” is a formula for development disaster.
Just ask China’s collapsing economies around their ghost towns.
The Penang South reclamation is worse. The model is the idealistic “reclaim before building and they will come”.
CHEAH KAH SENG
Penang