Investor confidence in Malaysia remains strong despite the turmoil surrounding the 1MDB scandal.

In addition, InvestKL Corporation Sdn Bhd CEO Zainal Amanshah said the group is performing better than last year and is on track to meet its target of drawing at least ten large multinational corporations to the Greater Kuala Lumpur region this year.

“Investor confidence continues to be there. The fundamentals of Malaysia remain very strong in terms of numbers, in terms of GDP, in terms of growth.

“GDP is projected to grow at about five percent or so. The stability will provide for the ongoing maturity of our infrastructure, the cost of doing business, the multilingual talent and also the lure of Asean - there are a lot of opportunities in Asean, with Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia being at the heart of Asean.

“So overall, yes you’re right. Challenging times, but there are still plenty of opportunities here as well as in the region,” Zainal (photo) said when asked if there is still interest in investing in Malaysia in view of the 1MDB scandal.

He was speaking to reporters when met at the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, where InvestKL organised a visit for representatives from 21 foreign missions in Kuala Lumpur, including ambassadors from the UK, Belgium, France, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and South Korea.

TRX, which is slated to be Kuala Lumpur’s financial district, is a 70-acre mixed development launched as a major 1MDB project in 2012.

However, the project has, following the 1MDB scandal, been carved out from the state investment fund and parked under the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc).

The project is slated for completion in late-2018 or early-2019.

In his briefing to the foreign representatives, TRX City Sdn Bhd CEO Azmar Talib (photo) said the project’s 106-storey (492m) tall Signature Tower would be topped off by the end of this year.

“In fact, when you enter the city from the south, you can see the Signature Tower dominating the Kuala Lumpur skyline,” he said.

For the record, the current tallest building in Malaysia is the Petronas Twin Towers, which stands at 88 storeys (451.9m) tall.

'TRX City in advanced stages of talks'

Azmar added that TRX City was in “advanced stages of talks” with potential investors. Without naming any of the investors, he said they were the best known names in the banking and financial services sector.

In June, TRX City had announced that HSBC Bank would invest US$250 million to set up its Malaysian headquarters at TRX.

Meanwhile, Zainal said he could not disclose the latest investment figures until InvestKL has cleared its mid-year reporting cycle, except that it was better than last year.

He said that last year, there were more than 65 companies committed to invest more than RM10 billion, and create 10,000 regional jobs.

“It is going well in terms of realised investment so far. It’s more than 30 percent and jobs on payroll are more than 60 percent.

“So it’s hard work. It’s tough. But so far, so good.

“In 2016 it was a little less. These are not official figures, I’m giving you a little bit of hint of 2017,” Zainal told reporters.

Also present at the briefing was TRX City executive director Tan Hwa Min, who gave a briefing on the features of the projects.

Among others, Tan said, TRX would have its own water reclamation system that would recycle waste water for its own use, thus reducing potable water consumption by 50 percent.

The area would be protected under the Protected Areas and Protected Places Act 1959, in addition to surveillance systems and a command centre in operation.

To ensure resilience, Tan said, TRX’s electrical systems are built up to the standard of the national electrical grid system to ensure reliability, while water is supplied by two main feeds to provide redundancy.

Its telecommunications infrastructure is also robust, he added.