This follows the government putting out a Request for Proposal (RFP) last June for the role of master developer in the Bandar Malaysia project.
“We took them for a site visit and they need to submit their proposal by the end of this month,” Irwan said in a press conference, after launching the Volunteering for International Professionals programme here today.
However, Irwan said the government does not know how many companies, out of the six, will actually submit their proposals based on the RFP for the project.
On June 22, the finance ministry released a statement saying that it had issued the RFP for the role of master developer, for the project that has been rife with controversy.
The finance ministry had said to ensure financial strength, an interested company or consortium must be an affiliate of a Fortune 500 company, an affiliate of a company which has generated cumulatively in the last three years no less than RM50 billion in revenue from the entire value chain of real estate and associated business, and has experience in international quality real estate development projects.
This came about after its share sale agreement (SSA) with Malaysia’s Iskandar Waterfront Holdings (IWH) and China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC) lapsed.
On May 3, it was announced that the share sale agreement with IWH-CREC, involving the sale of 60% of the issued and paid-up capital of Bandar Malaysia, had lapsed due to the failure of the purchasing parties to fulfil payment obligations.
Irwan did not say if either IWH or CREC, or both, were among the six companies which had shown interest.
The successful company will have a 60% stake in the project, while the Malaysian government, through a unit of state fund 1MDB, was to hold the remaining 40% stake.
Bandar Malaysia sits on prime real estate in Sungai Besi at the edge of downtown Kuala Lumpur. It is the land on which the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) used to operate from.
Its size of 196.7ha is five times the area of the iconic Kuala Lumpur City Centre site, where the Petronas Twin Towers stands.
Finance ministry hopes to attract Fortune 500 firms to Bandar Malaysia