Sep 22, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR: To make Greater Kuala Lumpur one of the top 20 cities in the world, an estimated RM172bil will be required over the next 10 years, with 34% of that funding money to come from the public sector.

Much of that money would go towards building a mass rapid transit system but funding would also go towards a proposed high speed rail between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, which would be a new track.

To improve pedestrian walkways and boost tourism, 7km of covered walkways would be built by DBKL and the private sector.

“The Greater Kuala Lumpur national key economic area’s vision can be summarised as 20-20 by 2020 – that is to be a city that simultaneously achieves a top-20 ranking in city economic growth while being among the global top-20 most liveable cities by 2020,” said Pemandu (the Performance Management and Delivery Unit) in a fact sheet on its Greater Kuala Lumpur proposal.

In its Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) presentation, Pemandu’s vision for Greater Kuala Lumpur contained proposals that would make Kuala Lumpur more liveable. Cleaning of the rivers would lead to the building of 10 riverfront spots for recreational purposes.

The ETP for Greater Kuala Lumpur also calls for more parks to improve the overalll quality of life and huge re-development projects include the development of the Sungai Besi airport and the land around the Matrade centre.

“Our economic aspiration is to grow GNI (gross national income) contribution from approximately RM258bil to RM650bil per year. This should move GNI share from about 30% of the nation’s GNI to approximately 40%,” it said in its factsheet.

Pemandu feels that the growth in income of the Greater Kuala Lumpur area would increase employment from 2.5 million in 2010 to 4.2 million by 2020, and additional targets include raising per capita GNI from RM40,000 to RM70,000 per year, achieving a top-20 ranking in the Economist Intelligence Unit Liveability Index survey and growing the population from six million to 10 million with a focus on growing the foreign talent base from 9% to 20% of the population

extracted : www.thestar.com.my