Dr Mahathir Mohamad criticised the authorities for selling freehold land to Chinese developers, particularly Country Garden, which is building the Forest City development, reported Free Malaysia Today.
In his latest blog, he blasted the government for insisting that the land was sold to the China-based home builder on a 99-year leasehold basis, as the advertisements along the road to Forest City are offering freehold properties.
Given that Country Garden is mainly marketing the project’s residential units to the Chinese, there is nothing to prevent the foreign buyers in Forest City from eventually becoming Malaysian citizens, he alleged.
Under the law, anyone who have lived in the country for over 12 years have the right to become a citizen and take part in the elections, noted Mahathir.
Meanwhile, Anuar Manap, Member of Parliament (MP) for Sekijang, acknowledged the freehold status of Forest City, but he pointed out that the development is being built on reclaimed land, and not on existing sites in Johor.
“It is built on reclaimed land. Forest City did not take existing land and make it a strata land. They reclaimed the land; it did not exist before,” he told Malaysiakini.
Separately, Free Malaysia Today reported that political party Amanah asked if the state government of Johor would help the RM100 billion Forest City if it struggles to sell properties to the Chinese due to China’s recent rules on capital outflows.
“As a clear example, the Chinese developer Country Garden who is building Forest City has already closed all its sales centres in China. This means there will be no new sales and the cost of this will be too big for the scale of Forest City which covers 1,385 hectares,” said Amanah’s Deputy President Salahuddin Ayub.
On Saturday (11 March), Johor Chief Minister told Bernama that Forest City is unlikely to be impacted by Beijing’s capital controls as the properties there are also being offered to other overseas buyers, including those from Australia, Europe and the Middle East.
Touted as a futuristic global metropolis, Forest City consists of four man-made islands that will contain houses, office buildings and shopping malls that are being built in the span of 20 years.
Image sourced from FMT
Radin Ghazali, Content Writer at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact her about this or other stories email radin@propertyguru.com.my
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