SEVERAL Chinese companies will bid for projects worth some US$7 billion (RM30.4 billion) in Bandar Malaysia when they meet Prime Minister Najib Razak in Beijing this weekend, days after Putrajaya cancelled an earlier share sale to a Sino-Malaysian consortium.

While no headline-grabbing deal that Putrajaya envisaged is going to happen in Beijing, Najib is going to signal that the government favours Dalian Wanda as master developer of the 197ha Bandar Malaysia development.

“There is a lot of interest and the new valuation is about US$7 billion for the entire development which is more than double of the 2015 price,” a source told The Malaysian Insight.

Najib will be flanked by key ministers when he meets top bosses of Dalian Wanda today in Beijing where he is attending the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on May 14 and 15, sources said.

The prime minister is also one of select few leaders who will hold bilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping to review mutual cooperation in regional and economic affairs.

The Malaysian Insight understands that Dalian Wanda will be the lead investor to develop Bandar Malaysia while China Rail Engineering Corporation (CREC) is expected to seek the high-speed-rail terminus project.

CREC was the 60% shareholder of IWH-CREC Sdn Bhd (ICSB) with Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn Bhd (IWH), which saw its share sale purchase deal terminated by Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) for not paying up.

Sources said the slew of private sector and state-owned enterprises bidding for the Bandar Malaysia development is acceptable to Beijing, which decides all major international deals.

Senior officials in the Najib administration are working out a schedule for Request For Proposal (RFP) timeline that will stretch up to three months.

The Singapore Straits Times reported that Dalian Wanda was leading the race to bag the deal which has been valued higher than the 2015 valuation of RM12.35 billion.

In the December 31, 2015 deal, ICSB had agreed to pay RM7.41 billion for a 60% stake in Bandar Malaysia but the purchase was terminated despite 12 extensions. Putrajaya returned ICSB’s RM741 million deposit in a cheque on May 9.

And in the past couple of days, IWH boss Lim Kang Hoo and the ICSB consortium has accepted that the government’s decision to terminate the deal is irrevocable, paving the way for new partners to come in.

A quick deal to develop Bandar Malaysia is also crucial to Putrajaya rationalising the debts of the project’s former owner, the scandal-hit 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) which accumulated a RM42 billion debt without the means to repay.

Najib made China a favoured partner for rail and port deals, and this is his seventh visit to the Middle Kingdom since taking office in 2009. His late father, Malaysia’s second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein, established ties with China in 1974. – May 13, 2017.