The government must adopt proper procurement mechanism for raw materials such as steel bars, cement, bricks and timber to avoid pressure on suppliers, built asset consultancy firm EC Harris director Girish Ramachandran said.
He said such measure is vital given the short duration of completion of infrastructure projects, highlighting on the government’s RM48.5 billion allocation on several infrastructure projects resulted from the Budget 2015 presentation last Friday.
“Even though these projects are all within a span of four to five years, if these projects are all conducted at the same time, there will a spike in demand of raw materials and this may have an impact on the prices,” said
“Countries like Qatar which infrastructure developments are moving rapidly have a procurement system which curbs the rise of raw material prices as such Malaysia should do the same,” he added.
These infrastructure projects are set to boost growth amid concern subsidy cuts and a new consumption tax will curb private spending.
These projects includes as the 59-km Sungai Besi-Ulu Klang Expressway (SUKE) with total construction cost of RM5.3 billion, a 276-km West Coast Expressway from Taiping to Banting (RM5 billion), 47-km Damansara-Shah Alam Highway (DASH)(RM4.2 billion); 36-km Eastern Klang Valley Expressway (EKVE)(RM1.6 billion), 56-km Second MRT Line from Selayang to Putrajaya (estimated RM23 billion); LRT 3 Project linking Bandar Utama to Shah Alam and Klang (estimated RM9 billion); and RM150 million upgrading of East Coast railway line.
Meanwhile, according to RHB Research Institute economist Peck Boon Soon, the allocation for the upgrading of the local infrastructure would continue to support the construction sector activities.
Autodesk Malaysia country manager Also Tan Choon Sang said that while these developments are necessary, it is undeniable that the world continues to face a tremendous set of challenges in maintaining, designing and building the infrastructure needed to support expected population growth.
“We strongly urge the government to look into adopting next generation technology in building these infrastructures such as building information modeling (BIM) to minimize lifecycle building costs and improving the design quality of the built asset.
“We need to ensure future infrastructure developments are designed and built sustainably – without leaving metric tons of construction waste, irresponsibly use precious resources and contaminate our environment,” he said.
Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd head of research Pong Teng Siew said there will be no impact on prices of raw materials due to the softening of the demand in residential and commercial properties.
