NEWS & EVENTS ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

Shorter building permit approval period

The Economic Action Council (EAC), chaired by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has decided that the building permit approval period will be shortened to 90 days from 390 days.

“This proposal will be implemented immediately by removing unnecessary requirements, without involving amendments to existing laws,” the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which is also the secretariat to the EAC, announced in a statement following the fourth EAC meeting on 8 July 2019.

This is part of the government’s efforts at reducing the number of processes that businesses and investors need to go through to do business in Malaysia to draw more investments. In the construction sector, developers sometimes have to undergo up to 60 processes to get a particular project fully approved.

“We want to try and reduce as much as we can,” the prime minister had said earlier in June.

The government and Malaysian Productivity Corporation (MPC) have been in talks with stakeholders, local authorities and technical agencies to improve the procedure for securing a building permit, Deputy Economic Affairs Minister Dr Mohd Radzi Md Jidin had told the Dewan Rakyat earlier this month.

Other key issues discussed at the latest EAC meeting include immediate steps to drive the tourism industry to stimulate the domestic economy, create more job opportunities and increase foreign exchange earnings. — Construction+ Online