Johor MB offers Dr M tour of Forest City

Johor Menteri Besar Khaled Nordin says he is prepared to take Dr Mahathir Mohamad on a tour of the new Forest City project in southern Johor.

Khaled said the tour would help correct Mahathir's negative assumptions on the project.

“We can invite Mahathir to see whether or not there are 700,000 Chinese there.

“The project is slated to take 30 years, and when completed, it would become a centre of finance, trade, and commerce that would enable us to attract all kinds of people to do business there,” Khaled said in a posting on Jauhar.my, the portal run by the menteri besar's office.

The website quoted Khaled as saying that the state government would ensure that the project benefits the people of Johor.

“We see foreign investors and people going to Johor to do their business. If we don’t manage it properly, it could (adversely) affect the position of the locals.

“Therefore, the state government is always thinking about what we can do to ensure that Johor would continue to succeed, while not giving a huge impact on the people,” he is reported as saying.

Competing with Singapore

He added that large-scale projects, such as Forest City, were necessary to compete with Singapore, but the Forest City project alone would cost US$100 billion (RM444 billion).

In contrast, he said, the federal government’s annual revenue was only RM260 billion.

Mahathir had previously claimed that Forest City is being sold without restrictions to foreigners, who are predominantly Chinese nationals.

These foreigners would gain citizenship in Malaysia, hence altering the demographics of Johor, the former prime minister warned.

The 700,000 figure came from a Bloomberg report that Mahathir quoted in his statement, which also said that the project would comprise 700,000 residential units.

However, Khaled reportedly denied this, saying that the state had never supported giving citizenship to foreigners for merely buying residential units in Johor.- Mkini