Indonesia Wants To Take Part In Kedah's Rubber City Project - Chief Minister

By Hamdan Ismail LANGKAWI, (Kedah, Malaysia) April 28 (Bernama) -- After Thailand, Indonesia is now showing a keen interest to participate in the Rubber City project planned to be created in Padang Terap, Kedah. Kedah Menteri Besar (Chief Minister of Malaysian northern state, Kedah) Mukhriz Mahathir told Bernama Tuesday that the interest was expressed during the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) Summit held at the Langkawi International Convention Centre (LICC) here. The summit was chaired by prime minister Najib Razak and attended by his counterpart from Thailand, General Prayuth Chan-Ocha and Indonesia's Vice President, Jusuf Kalla. In showing the interest, Mukhriz said Indonesia had suggested that the project should be part of a bigger Rubber Corridor area that would "link" all the three nations involved. "This is an interesting idea that perhaps could be studied in depth," he said. He said the state government was now in the process of acquiring an area of about 665 hectares in Padang Terap near Thailand-Malaysia Border, which had been identified for the Rubber City project. Under this project, an industrial area would be created that focused on rubber as the raw material for the production of tyres, gloves and other value-added products. Mukhriz expected that the planning and development stage for the project would start within two years' time and would involve private sector investments. "Right now we are looking only at infrastructure. The actual cost (for the project) would depend very much on private sector investments," he added. -- BERNAMA