HYDERABAD: Malaysia’s Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) is likely to invest Rs 10,000 crore in infrastructure projects in Telangana.
Industries minister KT Rama Rao, who is on a three-day tour of the Southeast Asian country, met CIDB’s chief executive officer Abdul Latif Hitam in Kaula Lumpur on Friday.
“The government of Malaysia’s CIDB has shown interest to invest ` 10,000 crore in the infrastructure projects of Telangana state,” an official press release from the industries department said. CIDB is a statutory body under the ministry of works, Malaysia, established to develop the Malaysian construction industry including promoting, stimulating and facilitating export of Malaysian construction services. It informed Rama Rao that it was interested to invest in infrastructure projects like managing highways, urban mass transit, mass housing and other projects in TS. The board also said it had already entered into an MoU with the Rajasthan government for construction of highways entailing an investment of ` 10,000 crore. This ` 10,000 crore of investment will follow the annuity-based repayment method. The CIDB delegation will tour the state to consider the projects to be taken by it.
Earlier in the day, Rama Rao met Malaysian prime minister’s advisor and head of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) Dato Sri Idris Jala. The Economic Transformation Programme of this institution is an initiative by the Malaysian government to turn Malaysia into a high-income economy by the year 2020.
Rama Rao studied the supervisory mechanism of the important infrastructure projects by the unit and asked the state officials to examine the same dashboard mechanism to supervise state projects on day-to-day basis.
Rama Rao also met the MD of Malaysia’s largest pharmaceutical company, Chemical Company of Malaysia, and invited the company to invest in TS.
Company managing director Arif Abdul Shatar said they would like to explore investment opportunities in vaccine manufacturing in TS.