Country Garden’s ambition in Malaysia backed by Johor’s royal family
Forest City project will include apartments, villas, schools, hospitals, an exhibition centre and a financial special administrative region
Despite concerns over oversupply, leading Chinese developer Country Garden expresses full confidence in its city building plan in Malaysia, which is backed up by a deep relationship with local royalty.
In its second project in Malaysia’s southern state of Johor, the Guangdong-based developer plans to invest a total of 250 billion yuan (HK$296 billion) over 20 years to build a “Forest City” on 14 square kilometres of land.
It is developing the project in partnership with Esplanade Danga 88, an associate company of Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor (KPRJ), through a joint venture, Country Garden Pacific View (CGPV), with Country Garden holding a 60 per cent stake.
The largest shareholder of Esplanade Danga 88 is Johor’s Sultan Ibrahim Ismail, making Forest City a joint venture between Country Garden and the Johor monarch.
“To survive [in Malaysia], you must have close relationship with the state government,” a senior manager at CGPV said, adding that Country Garden chairman Yang Guoqiang and the sultan were very close friends, meeting and having dinner together about every two months.
Whenever there are complaints or other issues from the Malaysian or Singaporean government, we have channels for talk
The relationship had helped Country Garden achieve smooth communication with governments.