Gamuda and Forest City are IBS biggest investors, says MITI
16 Nov 2017 | The Malaysian Reserve

Gamuda Bhd and Country Garden Pacific View Sdn Bhd’s (CGPV) Forest City are the biggest investors that use the Industrialised Building System (IBS) in Malaysia, with investments worth RM500 million and RM2.6 billion respectively.

“Gamuda has two projects amounting to RM500 million in investments. Their phase one is in Sepang, while phase two is in Banting.

“As for Forest City (project), they are our biggest foreign company involved in IBS and both the companies produce their own raw materials,” International Trade and Industry (MITI) Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said at the launch of the IBS and Building Mater ials Supply Chain 2017/2018 Directory yesterday in Kuala Lumpur.

Bernama had in May reported that Forest City, a joint venture between China and Malaysia, will feature technologies from Germany, Italy and China.

Mustapa said besides these companies, there are about 250 companies that claim to adopt the IBS.

Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) had a key performance indicator expectation of RM2 billion in investments for IBS this year, and it has approved RM1.8 billion investments thus far.

“We are quite satisfied with what we have achieved so far. Though, what is most important is, how they carry out the project using IBS,” Mustapa said further.

In the future, the ministry, together with Mida are considering to make IBS compulsory in the construction sector.

The minister said the construction sector continues to record higher gross domestic product (GDP) growth yearon- year compared to the national GDP since 2012.

“The 2017-2018 Economic Report by the Ministry of Finance said that the construction industry is expected to expand by 7.5% in 2017, as opposed to its estimated growth of 7.6%,” he said.

He reiterated that the sector’s growth will be supported by ongoing infrastructure projects such as the mass rapid transit project, the Pan-Borneo highway and East Coast Rail Link.

MITI’s main focus to improve the sector will include reducing the number of foreign workers at the site and to improve the productivity as a whole.

Mustapa added that Mida oversaw the signing of a memorandum of understanding between construction companies and companies in the supply chain in March, worth RM1.02 billion in business deals.

He had requested Mida to get updates on the deals to ensure the deliverability of the project. “Because in many occasions, some companies have signed but failed to deliver, so we must check, because it has been over six months and there has been no update since,” he said.