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Kuala Lumpur
WITH its blue reflective glass facade and 12-storey clear glass crown, Exchange Tower 106 in Kuala Lumpur is intended to make a statement about the promptness of this Malaysian capital to be considered among the The four million square foot office and retail skyscraper, which is expected to be completed before the end of the year, is the centerpiece of the $ 10 billion Tun Razak Exchange. Minister Najib Razak will transform 70 acres of the Central Business District into a new global financial center.
Among the 15 tallest buildings in the world, the tower is 133 feet taller than the Petronas Twin Towers, which marked Kuala Lumpur's skyline. since their opening in 1998.
But the importance of the building has been overshadowed by accusations of government corruption, embezzlement and money laundering.
On May 9, the Malaysians elected by the parliament of the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan.
Their leader, Mahathir Mohamad, reformist candidate and former prime minister, replaced Najib and his ruling party Barisan Nasional.
Dr. Mahathir's victory is based on a persistent and pervasive critique of corruption in a nine-year national development fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which was initiated and overseen by Najib.
1MDB launched the Tun Razak Fellowship and, until three years ago, was its main developer. 19659002] But several investigations, including one by the FBI, calculated that US $ 4.5 billion was missing from the development fund, and that US $ 731 million was diverted to Najib's personal accounts.
On July 3, Najib was arrested and charged with theft and money laundering. In June, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng told reporters that $ 750 million had been "diverted" by 1MDB from the Tun Razak Stock Exchange, known as TRX.
The Mahathir Administration "The Malaysian Government has decided to support the TRX project to recover all misappropriated funds, repay all loans, recover all financing investments and opportunity costs", a- he added. as well as potentially achieving a small return of surplus, "said Lim.
Exchange Tower 106 and the new financial center were special favorites of Najib.TRX is named after his father, Abdul Razak Hussein, Malaysia's second prime minister
Najib's allegiance to the project helped convince the Mulia group, a large Jakarta-based developer, to spend $ 166 million on the 3.4-acre stock market. enough room to build the tower.
Mulia owns 49% of the tower; TRX was included in a US $ 100 billion infrastructure construction campaign launched by Najib in 2009 to raise Malaysia's 39, a middle-income country to what he called a "Top 20 nation."
These projects included new railway lines and stations, mixed-use real estate projects, ports, highways, pipelines and power plants
Since the May 9 general election, Dr. Mahathir has canceled or suspended most major projects. , with two pipelines, a Kuala Lumpur metro line and two national train lines.
But with Mahathir 's new investment in the TRX, the Exchange 106 tower will be completed as planned before the end of the year. the development of acre seems on a clear path to completion by the early 2020s.
Until the corruption scandal erupted in public view in 2015 and its capital and responsibilities were restructured, 1MDB was responsible for land sales and
The Ministry of Finance assumed 1MDB share of the project last year
Dr. Mahathir hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to audit the accounts of 1MDB. According to government reports, the losses and other government bonds of concrete and steel infrastructure projects started by Najib more than doubled the national debt, reaching $ 250 billion. Since being elected in 2009
Since 2012, according to the Malaysian authorities, 1MDB has spent approximately $ 925 million to secure loans, provide advances and purchase land at TRX. 1MDB has recovered part of its expenses from the sale of parcels of land within the limit of the project
The tower and the largest purse are hives of active construction.
More than 2,000 workers, working 24 hours a day, try the site. Other projects under construction include US $ 2.8 billion, 17-hectare Lifestyle Quarter, which includes a hotel, six apartment towers, a two-million-square-foot shopping center and a rooftop landscaped park from the mall. the Sydney-based project management company, is developing the quarter.
Several other office towers are under construction, and Malaysia's Prudential Insurance division has leased premises in one of them.
The announcement that the government would continue to invest In the case of TRX, one of the largest public-private projects in Asia has been relieved.
Christine Yeap, marketing and leasing manager at Mulia, said that the company was working with the Mahathir administration to avoid any market disruption. The Exchange 106 tower is leased at about 60%
"Mulia Group is optimistic that the government will guide this development on the best way forward," she told reporters in Kuala Lumpur
. the most "luxurious" office building in the world.
The tower includes 100,000 square feet of sales area on the ground floor, a lobby on the 57th floor and 92 floors of offices. burl wood and marble. The onyx bathrooms are designed with a custom $ 1,300 toilet that works with digital controls.
Floor plates extend over 28,000 to 34,000 square feet and are not obstructed by support columns. And the views of the city and the metropolitan area are magnificent.
"When we agreed to build this project, our president said it will not be just another building," Yeap said. "It will be the best building in the world: when it opens, people will see that we have achieved that goal."
The tall tower fills a serious shortage of upscale offices in Kuala Lumpur, said Michael Yam, a prominent developer in Kuala Lumpur
"There is only one or two buildings that are really Class A, "he said. "These new buildings to the exchange will have a great demand."
Exchange Tower 106 and other Tun Razak projects under construction follow a master plan that focuses on energy efficiency, environmental sensitivity and access.
by a new metro station on the MRT1 line of conductor – less $ 50 billion that opened last year.
The landscaped central park is a green roof. Veolia Water Technologies, a French contractor, is building a 30,000-square-foot plant to process 3.5 million gallons of wastewater a day for toilets, cooling and landscaping.
The plant is able to halve the demand for water "The development still consumes drinking water from the city," said Sandrine Guendoul, spokeswoman for Veolia. "The large degree of internal reuse significantly reduces the load on the urban network." NYTIMES
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