With reference to the above article quoting NCIA’s Chief Executive Encik Harris Sultan’s comments that “businesses in other northern states, including Penang – would have to wait for up to two years for necessary approval”, the state would like to clarify that industrial projects in Penang are allowed to commence construction work once the Building Plan is submitted to the Councils and Early Commencement of Works (ECOW) is approved by the Councils’ One-Stop-Center meetings which are held every 2 weeks.

Penang has built more than 30 greenfield factories of over 10 acres of land in Batu Kawan Industrial Park & Penang Science Park over the last 10 years.

Penang’s record and experience for various greenfield manufacturing project constructions in these industrial parks, including a few facilities with more than 400,000 sqft built up area with cleanroom facilities, were fully completed within 10 to 12 months, starting from submission of building plans to obtaining certificate of completion and compliance.

InvestPenang leads a project implementation task force to track and assist all investors in every phase of their on-the-ground project implementation to facilitate approvals and completion.

All these efforts are in place to promote the ease of doing business in Penang.

Dato’ Loo Lee Lian
CEO of InvestPenang

/end of statement.