KUALA LUMPUR: Iskandar Investment Bhd (IIB) plans to carry out more major projects that will help turn Malaysia's biggest special economic zone into one of the world's iconic projects- This would include having global innovation centres that are essentially research facilities run by major companies in Iskandar Malaysia, said IIB president and chief executive officer Datuk Syed Mohamed Ibrahim- "We have identified a few and we are hopeful and confident that we will be able to have global innovation centres in Nusajaya," he told reporters at a briefing yesterday- Syed Mohamed expects to sign up these companies this year- The idea is to create high-tech and connected smart cities- For instance, a city could have a central data centre that controls anything from electricity supply and traffic flow to parking systems and building temperature- These innovation centres would use Iskandar Malaysia like a lab to test their products- Since the Nusajaya area in Iskandar is still growing, they would be more attractive for these centres- IIB, a 60 per cent unit of Khazanah Nasional Bhd, also expects Iskandar Malaysia to start showing significant results in 2012 as most of the infrastructure and some early projects are completed- In fact, the 122 hectares for its high education hub, EduCity, have been fully taken up by foreign universities and it may add a similar sized area to build more learning institutions like business and creative schools- As for its mixed-development called Medini, it aims to bring in new investors from China and India in projects like a RM400 million hotel and a resort- There are also strong interest from Malaysian property developers now- "We have been struggling all these years to get local developers to Nusajaya- Of late, there is serious intention from local developers," Syed Mohamed said- The demand has also caused problems for IIB because if it decides to develop more land ahead of schedule, it may lose on the potential higher land value in the future- But if it does not do so, the developers may decide to go somewhere else- Apart from EduCity and Medini, Iskandar Malaysia will also have the first Legoland theme park in Asia and film studios operated by UK-based Pinewood- ...
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