Business

Thursday February 28, 2013

IIB to focus on EduCity

By ZAZALI MUSA
zaza@thestar.com.my


<b>New landmark:</b> (from left) Bell, Dr Mohamed Ali and Syed Mohamed at the ground breaking ceremony. New landmark: (from left) Bell, Dr Mohamed Ali and Syed Mohamed at the ground breaking ceremony.

NUSAJAYA: Iskandar Investment Bhd (IIB) will be consolidating operations by focusing on the development of the EduCity project within the next one to two years.

President and chief executive officer Datuk Syed Mohamed Syed Ibrahim said the company would deliver the products as planned in phase one of the project.

He said the company would not rush to bring in more universities or academic institutions to EduCity, especially from other countries, for the sake of filling up space.

“We have to be selective and go only for the top-notch universities to maintain the highest standards for EduCity as the leading educational hub in the region,'' Syed Mohamed said at a press conference after the ground-breaking ceremony of the RM980mil United Kingdom-based University of Reading campus here yesterday. Present at the event were the university's vice-chancellor Sir David Bell and Higher Education Ministry director (Governance Division, Department of Higher Education) Dr Mohamed Ali Abdul Rahman.

Syed Mohamed added that IIB had received proposals from universities in China and Japan expressing strong interest to set up branch campuses here.

Syed Mohamed said the company was quite comfortable with the planning and development of the project as of now and did not see any need to bring in more universities.

He said the announcement by China's Xiamen University to set up its first overseas branch campus in Selangor had somehow taken the burden off IIB's shoulders to attract top Chinese universities to EduCity.

“Let the university (Xiamen) project take off first before we think of getting Chinese universities to come here,'' said Syed Mohamed.

The company was now completing the planning development of EduPark and that its blueprint would be unveiled towards the end of the year, he said.

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