Port Klang Modern Harbour City

Klang Modern Harbor City Project

Selangor wants to know why port project delayed

A proposed RM400mil project to turn Port Klang into a modern harbour city has not taken off and the government wants to know why.

“The project's proponent Asa Niaga submitted the harbour city development plan some time ago but work has not started yet. We will find out why. It was a project given to a bumiputra company to help bumiputra entrepreneurs,” said Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo after the state assembly sitting on the budget yesterday.

Asked if Asa Niaga faced financial difficulties in starting the project, Dr Khir said that if the company did not have money, the state would consider giving the project to another company. Dr Khir said he would also be looking into complaints that Asa Niaga, which operated a barter trade business in Port Klang, had supposedly violated conditions in its licence by “pinching” container business from others.

The harbour city is a massive project proposed in the 1990s. Asa Niaga planned to turn it into a first-class international passenger and boat terminal, comparable to the Fishermen’s Wharf in San Francisco, Clark’s Quay in Singapore and Port Douglas in Queensland, Australia. The proposal included four jetties, a yacht club, a fish and vegetable distribution centre, a wholesale market, two restaurants, duty-free shopping arcades, 15 chalet units and a 20-storey five-star hotel. Phase One was supposed to be completed in 2007, featuring domestic and international passenger terminals, a waterfront esplanade, a marina bay and two restaurants.

On March 21st 2005, The Star reported that the Selangor govt was in a quandary over whether to go ahead with a RM4bil project to turn Sepang district coastline into a beach resort to rival Gold Coast in Australia. The Sepang Gold Coast project is one of the biggest the state has ever planned to undertake and will transform the economic outlook of Sepang district and its surroundings. Under the proposal, the beachfront development can rival the Queensland Gold Coast or even Maimi Beach in Florida when completed. The project will see the development of the beaches from Bagan Lalang to Tanjung Sepat which is a joint venture between Permodalan Negri Selangor and Sepang Bay Sdn Bhd.

This project got into trouble when the local authority issue a stop work order as the piling works were carried out without following procedures.

So, what is happening to Selangor and it's mega development projects? The land has been alienated to these companies and there is no progress.

What interest me is that these development projects are such massive as so fantasies - competing with the reknown Gold Coast, Maimi Beach, Fishermen’s Wharf, Clark’s Quay and Port Douglas; and the developers are not reknown names like Syed Mokhtar, Francis Yeoh, Ananda Khrisnan, Diam Zainuddin, or business alliances or partnerships with names like Donald Trump, Hutchinson, etc.

We hear of Asa Niaga Sdn Bhd and Sepang Bay Sdn Bhd, both of which are not associated with mega PLCs such as Khazanah, Maxis, PNB, etc. How does a smallish company fund a massive billion dollar projects? Aren't we expected to see Ali-Babas?

UMNO Youth are suppose to have monitoring system and a economic secretariat to help, among other things, trace contract leaks and forge closer ties between government-linked companies (GLCs) and small- and medium-size industries. It was suppose to act as a “think tank” to the Government in the Malay economic agenda. Can't UMNO Youth take control of these two massive project so that the Malays can keep the profits in their own hand as enunciated by their Youth deputy president?

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