Free Immigration Zone in Malaysia Halted

Malaysia has dropped a plan to create an immigration free zone in a multibillion-dollar industrial park project in the southern state of Johor, bordering Singapore, newspapers reported Friday.

Johor Chief Minister Abdul Ghani Othman said an area that allowed foreigners to come and go without passing immigration would no longer be set up because such a zone was not necessary to encourage investment.

“The (free access zone) no longer exists. It was just a proposal, but we do not need it,” the New Straits Times quoted Ghani as saying at a conference on the Iskandar development project in the state Thursday.

The immigration free zone, envisaged as an incentive to attract investors, was severely criticized recently by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who said it would compromise national sovereignty. Click here.

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