China's CCCC to make KL its Asean hub, build tower at TRX

Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) Lifestyle Quarter's retail component The Exchange TRX has leased 26% of its retail space to-date to tenants such as Japanese department store Seibu.

BEIJING: China Communications Construction Co Ltd (CCCC) intends to make Kuala Lumpur its hub for the Asean region as the port and construction group expands its footprint here.

“We will set up our regional centre in Kuala Lumpur,” CCCC vice-president Peng Dapeng told reporters at the group’s headquarters in Beijing. 

He said the group was building the “CCCC tower”, a commercial building in the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX). 

“We have acquired the land. We are in the midst of reviewing the project so details are scant now,” he said, without disclosing the gross development value (GDV) and investment value.

“We will have our regional head office there for Asean and some portion of the tower will be rented out,” Peng said, adding that the group currently had eight regional hubs globally.

“Malaysia is very important to us. As you can see, the contract value we have in Malaysia is the highest among other Asean countries. Currently, we have more than US$16bil (RM67.27bil) worth of on-going contracts in hand. We believe this number will be bigger in the future,” he added.

In August, CCCC’s Malaysian unit had agreed to subscribe to 15% in WCT Precious Development Sdn Bhd (WCTPD), which had earlier acquired a plot measuring 71,986 sq ft in the TRX district from 1MDB Real Estate Sdn Bhd (1MDBRE) for RM223mil.

CORE (Singapore) TRX Investment Pte Ltd, a company related to CCCC’s sister company CCCG Real Estate Group Ltd (both companies are owned by China Communications Construction Group Ltd), owns a controlling 65% stake in WCTPD. The remaining 20% is held by WCT Land Sdn Bhd.

The land was then earmarked for the construction of a proposed tower block of high-end serviced apartments with a GDV of about RM1.1bil. WCT Holdings Bhd’s unit WCT Bhd was given the letter of award by 1MDBRE  contract to undertake the construction.