More good news for Iskandar Malaysia

My google alert on Iskandar Malaysia returned very positive articles, although I'd hope for a more insider pessimistic take (anonymously would be fine), so the officials could actually identify the problems and solve it.

In propertyWTF forum, a sub-forum has been created for Johor, I believe that this shows a higher interest in this area by forum members. I have noticed some other property forums too, but this forum intrigued me with an interesting character who bought over 23 properties before he's 30.

Sunway managed to acquired a landbank of nearly 800 acres near Sungai Pendas, link, map. This area is extremely close to the second-link and has plenty of water area to work with. A Brisbane sort of south bank maybe? That would be gorgeous. Bungalows with personal harbour possible too.

Many projects are steaming ahead in Iskandar Malaysia. I visited NusaJaya/ Legoland/ Puteri Harbour/ Hello Kitty theme park. The demand is high for Legoland/ Medinimall as all of the units have already been rented out, it seems that all the shops there unanimously agree that restaurants and drink are the best business here. A glaring difference is an Al-Ikhsan, probably for people to buy clothes to change before/ after having all the water fun.

As you can see this blog is still very disorganised. I will make sure it improves over time (theoretically, could be forever).

Rare Earth

Rare Earths

As defined by IUPAC, rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a set of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, specifically the fifteen lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium. Wikipedia

FT:

Lynas Corporation, an Australia-based miner, announced on Thursday that its first shipment of rare earths ore had arrived in Malaysia, where it has a processing facility expected to start producing the substances in the first half of 2013. Meanwhile, companies in Japan have been aggressively investing in rare earths mines and processing around the world, including in Kazakhstan, Vietnam and India.

China decided to subsidise a relatively small amount of $35m to $40m for the Rare Earth industry annually. China was and I believe still the dominant exporter of refined Rare Earths.

China's exports of these substances in 2011 was 11% less than the year before. Newer producers of Rare Earth like Vietnam, Kazakhstan and India are increasing the supply of Rare Earths elsewhere.

Despite the strong objection of the locals and some Malaysians, it seems now that the Lynas factory in Kuantan has received their first shipment of rare-earth and should be operating very soon. According to the information from Lynas, the plant is looking to produce 22,000 tons of Rare Earths concentrates per year.

Lynas will have a "pioneer" status and enjoy a 12-year tax exemption period. I believe that the people will be most concerned about the control on radioactive substances and prevention on any pollution. If the plant would like to operate with no hindrance in the future, it is important for it to really solve those problems.

Iskandar Malaysia

I believe that you do not need to be a Johor Bahru resident to notice the Iskandar project, which now could well exceed the RM100 billion cumulative investment mark. 

To those who have never heard of this project, wiki:

Iskandar Malaysia, formerly known as Iskandar Development Region (IDR) and South Johor Economic Region (SJER) is the main southern development corridor in Johor, Malaysia. The Iskandar Malaysia was established on 30 July 2006.

The project is administered by Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA) and was named after the late Sultan of Johor, Almarhum Sultan Iskandar.

The official website 

It is a great project on paper and it seems that everything is going smoothly. "Iskandar Malaysia" will be on my google alert list for the foreseeable future. What do you think of this project?