.jpg "Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir gives a speech at Sunway University in Petaling Jaya January 13, 2020. u00e2u20acu201d Picture by Choo Choy May")
PETALING JAYA, Jan 13 — Kedah state government is looking at merging the local councils for the Kulim district and Kulim Hi-Tech Park (KHTP) in light of the park’s expansion plans.
Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir told a forum today that the park has expanded into all the land areas that have been allocated to it and any further expansion will have to encroach into Kulim itself.
“KHTP is to be expanded but one issue is that the local council managing KHTP is from an enactment by Parliament. The state owns the local council but the land area they have is now exhausted and now they are moving into the local government of Kulim, which is right next door.
“So new investors in phase 4 are complaining that their address is not KHTP but Sungai Seluang and they are unhappy with the name.
“So, because of that we are working to merge the two local governments so the district will be KHTP so it will have larger tract of land to expand into phase 5 and the rest,” said Mukhriz.
At the same time, he also hopes that KHTP’s expansion will experience “exponential growth” rather than the slow and steady pace that the park has enjoyed from its inception in 1996 to 2019.
He added that there are many opportunities that his state can take advantage of in its expansion plan for the park, including the ongoing trade war between China and the US.
“I find when things like the trade war is going on, there are certain opportunities that come to us that we can exploit both from China and the US. I think if we are good at taking advantage of the situation, we will be able to bring in more FDI.
“I hope it won’t be at the same pace that we did from 1996 to 2019, which was RM31 billion. Hopefully there will be exponential growth with certain industries involved with artificial intelligence, robotics and all that,” said Mukhriz.
