The country's cities and urban centres should avoid becoming "concrete jungles", said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim when launching the Asean-China Ministerial Roundtable on Construction and Housing 2024 on Wednesday (July 3).
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NewsTranscript
00:00Ibrahim, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, to deliver his officiating speech.
00:09Challenges of maintaining a competitive edge in the construction and housing industries
00:17encompass these various complex sectors. We need new buildings, we need to ensure that it is
00:30technologically profound, digital requirements, and now with the AI, which must be modern.
00:39We require skilled labour, we require compliance or regulatory compliance.
00:47We understand we have to anticipate the fluctuations in market demand,
00:54but I must emphasize the cultural vibrancy. Our architects are trained mainly in the West,
01:07or even here, but not a Western sort of a construct.
01:13And I am pleased to note that many of our architects, including the young ones,
01:18are more familiar and committed to ensure that what we show is not just any other city,
01:32is not just a concrete jungle, from the green jungle, Greenland, to the concrete jungle.
01:38It is all the same throughout the world. It has to have character. It has to be
01:47culturally vibrant. And in the context of Malaysia, there is an indigenous culture,
01:53there is Malay, or Chinese, or Indian, which is part and parcel of a community.
02:00And if you look beyond to Sabah and Sarawak, you see this fantastic, vibrant cultural mix,
02:09from the Dayaks, to the Kadazans, to the Muruts, etc. And it will be shameful
02:17if we do not take those features into consideration in either planning, or crafting, or building.
02:26So it is important for developers and architects, planners, policy makers, to ensure that
02:34it is culturally vibrant, it is modern and technologically sound, but environmentally
02:41friendly, and it takes into consideration the requirements of all sectors, so that you do not
02:50have the repeat of a tale of two cities. One sector for the very rich, one sector for the poor and
03:00the downtrodden. It must be a new tale of one city that is inclusive,
03:14designed to foster innovation, promote sustainability,
03:20and ensure that the industry remains competitive on a global stage.
03:30Thank you.