Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's trip to China this week could see him bringing back a new developer for Bandar Malaysia - one that is owned by China's richest man, billionaire Wang Jianlin.

The Straits Times cited government officials and financial executives as saying Dalian Wanda Group - China's largest real estate developer - is poised to become the master developer of Bandar Malaysia.

News of the deal - speculated to be "substantially higher" than the RM12.3 billion valuation for Bandar Malaysia - comes a week after the Iskandar Waterfront Holdings (IWH) and China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC) consortium's RM7.4 billion 60 percent stake in the project was terminated.

However, the Wanda deal is pending approval from China's financial regulators, who are currently clamping down on capital outflows from the country.

If approved, the report said, the deal would be inked during Najib's visit to China this week.

Najib is scheduled to be in Beijing for the the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Thursday and Friday.

Wanda senior executives reportedly expressed an interest in Bandar Malaysia when they met Najib during his previous trip to China last November.

The group has reportedly proposed to use half of Bandar Malaysia for tourism and entertainment-related ventures worth US$8 billion.

Putrajaya had initially sold off a stake in Bandar Malaysia to IWH-CREC as part of a 1MDB debt restructuring exercise.

Last Wednesday, Najib had unexpectedly cancelled his visit to the site - located on the former Sungai Besi military airport.

On the very same day, landowners TRX City Sdn Bhd announced that the deal with the IWH-CREC consortium had collapsed because the latter did not meet payment obligations for its 60 percent stake. The consortium had disputed this claim.

The Straits Times cited officials involved in the 1MDB debt restructuring as saying that the consortium had failed to prove they had the RM1.93 billion needed to relocate the Sungai Besi airbase.

The report also cited government officials as saying that CREC had failed to obtain approval from China's financial regulators.