KUALA LUMPUR: Corporate Malaysia investing in the United Kingdom can expect a rousing business landscape following the ascension of former London mayor Boris Johnson as prime minister.
The UK is also expected to play a bigger role in boosting trade and investment wih Malaysia and other Asean countries.
Eco World Development Group Bhd chairman Tan Sri Liew Kee Sin said Johnson had always been business-friendly.
“My view is that Boris will be a great prime minister. He has a different approach in solving issues. Despite the daunting tasks he is facing especially Brexit, he is more than capable of finding an amicable solution. Watch out for key cabinet appointments,” Liew told the New Straits Times.
“Based on his tenure as London mayor, Johnson has always been business friendly. He encouraged development especially regeneration sites to bring life back to the city.
“I am confident that he will adopt investor-friendly policies. Once the new policies are in place and Brexit is out the way, the UK economy will improve dramatically,” added Liew, who himself was credited for playing a key role in the iconic Battersea Power Station redevelopment in London by a Malaysian consortium.
The Battersea acquisition is the biggest property deal in the UK.
The project is owned by Sime Darby Property Bhd and SP Setia Bhd, each with a 40 per cent stake, and the Employees Provident Fund, which has the balance of 20 per cent.
The Battersea project is on 17 hectares and will have more than 4,000 new homes over several phases until 2028.
Liew used to be a major shareholder of SP Setia before being taken over by Permodalan Nasional Bhd, the country’s largest assetment management company. He remained as SP Setia chairman until 2015.
He subsequently joined his eldest son Tian Xiong at Eco World, which later got down to a number of rival developments next door to the Battersea project.
Eco World sister company Eco World International Bhd is also active in London, being involved in several property projects such as London City Island, Embassy Gardens and The Wardian.
Meanwhile, Asli's Centre for Public Policy Studies chairman and economist Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam expects a friendlier business environment from the change in the UK leadership, potentially leading the policies back to Commonwealth priority.
“I expect the UK to play a bigger role in Malaysia and Asean. It will return to the old Commonwealth and make it more relevant in trade and investment,” he said when contacted today.
Johnson has just three months to avert a so-called “no-deal” Brexit, in which the UK would crash out of the European Union (EU) without any future trade agreement.
He had reportedly pledged to negotiate a new divorce deal with the EU to secure a smooth transition.
But if the bloc continued to refuse to renegotiate, he promised to leave anyway – “do or die” – on the current agreed date of October 31.
Some investors and economists have said that such an abrupt step would rattle global markets and push the world’s fifth largest economy into recession or even chaos.