KUALA LUMPUR: Local councils in Selangor will have to allocate a portion of tax collected from industrial parks to fund maintenance works in existing industrial areas.
State Investment, Industry & Commerce, SMEs and Transportation committee chairman Datuk Teng Chang Khim said the state was in the final stages of drafting the guideline to facilitate the new decision. The guideline, he said, would be implemented early next year under the purview of the Industrial Park Management Committee (IPMC) in each council.
“Each council will be given a different percentage to allocate for this purpose since the amount collected varies by council. “The money will be used for maintenance and management purposes of the existing industrial parks,” he added.
The IPMC, added Teng, was already meeting three times a year to oversee issues and complaints received about poor maintenance in the industrial areas but the state felt the committee needed to play a more important role.
He suggested that the IPMC monitor the money spent on the maintenance and decide if the allocations need to be changed accordingly after further observation.
Members of the IPMC include local council officers, councillors, representatives from the chambers of commerce as well as the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers. Teng said this in response to a question by Tiew Way Keng (DAP-Teratai).
He also said they were encouraging developers of new industrial parks to adopt the Managed Industrial Park concept implemented by the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (MIDA).
Under the concept, industrial parks can opt to hire a manager for the maintenance of roads and garbage collection but not many have opted for it.
Teng said this could help provide better service for the tenants and owners of the park since there was only a single monitoring body.
He said MIDA also had provisions for the appointed management company to build hostels, charge rentals for that and provide security services as well.There is also tax exemption for some services.
Later on, Teng also announced the upcoming Selangor Smart City International Conference 2016 to be held on Dec 6 and 7 during a press conference at the state secretariat.
The two-day conference will showcase solutions and technologies by Smart City Startups, IoT players and Big Data service providers from the United Kingdom, Malaysia and several Asian countries. Some of the key individuals responsible for the development of Barcelona, Taipei , Bandung and Cyberjaya into the leading Smart Cities will be at the conference as well.
They are expecting about 500 participants to the conference that is touted to be the biggest Smart City events in the region.
