Putrajaya failed Forest City, says Johor crown prince

 

Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim said the Forest City project had contributed RM630 million in tax payments and dividends thus far.

PETALING JAYA: The Forest City project is far from a failure, Johor crown prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim said today, denying claims in a YouTube video that it was a “useless project “.

Instead, he said the poor sales in the project were caused by “inconsistent policies” of the federal government.

Tunku Ismail said Forest City had made immense contributions to the Johor government by way of RM630 million in tax payments and dividends thus far.

The project had created over 1,200 jobs for locals, and contracts worth RM1.4 billion to 150 local contractors in the state.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic had affected Johor as everywhere else with an “un-encouraging” economic situation, leading to lower sales at Forest City.

“It must be noted that inconsistent federal government policies have affected the faith of investors in our country. I hope that with more stable policies in the future and with a better economic situation, more investors will come and invest here,” he said in a Facebook post.

Tunku Ismail said Forest City has won a town planning award by the Global Forum on Human Settlements, and the recognition showed the project was not a failure.

The Crown Prince’s remarks come after the “Top Luxury” YouTube channel called the Forest City project the second “most useless mega project” globally.

Forest City’s developers, Country Garden Pacificview Sdn Bhd also hit out at the video. It said that the channel’s creator had chosen to point out a “racist, biased and personal point of view.”

“The so-called global city ranking is not recognised by any international authoritative organisation. The content was merely created to get hits,” the company said in a statement. ““The video has made outrageous, biased points which were irrelevant or misleading.”

Forest City involves four artificial islands measuring 13.86 sq km off the waters of Johor near Iskandar Puteri and Singapore’s Tuas. News reports show that only one island was nearing completion.- FMT