NILAI, March 16 — The Housing and Local Government Ministry is aiming for all affordable homes projects under its purview to utilise the Industrialised Building System (IBS) completely by 2024.

Its minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said her ministry’s adoption of the IBS is around 30 to 40 per cent currently and that it is on track to achieve its target.

"As far as the target to achieve 100,000 affordable homes from the government we are utilising the IBS and the conventional method.

"By the third or fourth year we can do 50 to 60 per cent and by the fifth year onwards we can go 100 per cent of IBS for affordable homes.

"The fifth year would be in 2024 and this will only be for the Housing and Local Government Ministry’s projects,” she said at the launch of MGB Berhad’s first permanent IBS precast concrete plant here.

Zuraida said private developers have a choice whether or not they want to utilise the IBS system.

However, the minister predicted that if 50 per cent or more of the market is using IBS, the rest will usually follow suit barring locations that are inaccessible for IBS lorries to carry the product to construction sites.

She acknowledged that smaller, less accessible rural roads will not be able to cater the IBS lorries but remained confident that in time the country will have better infrastructure to provide IBS to rural areas.

In response to claims by other developers who claim that IBS is not an effective cost-saving measure, Zuraida pointed out that the savings come up in a different manner.

"When presented to me I was told that there is a 49 per cent cost saving on the labour force. Timing was also six months ahead. When it comes to dollars and cents, [it’s] not there yet.

"We will only have it when we have gone to full capacity and the industry matures. So it is a long term saving,” said Zuraida.

Currently, Malaysia’s IBS sector produces around 19,000 units annually.

With the MGB’s newly launched plant, the nation can now produce up to 23,000 IBS units each year.