Selangor Week kicks off in Japan with strategic deals
KUALA LUMPUR: Selangor Week kicked off at Expo 2025 Osaka on Monday with the formalisation of two strategic partnerships led by Worldwide Holdings Bhd, the investment arm of the Selangor State Government, underscoring the state's commitment to innovation, sustainability, and global engagement.
The first collaboration involves a joint initiative to explore the development of an integrated gas infrastructure network in Selangor, including a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal, lateral pipelines, and downstream gas distribution systems. This move strengthens Selangor's position as a key player in Malaysia's low-carbon transition and boosts long-term energy resilience for the state.
In a separate agreement, Tourism Selangor inked a memorandum of understanding with the National Association of Private Educational Institutions (NAPEI) and the Japan Travel Bureau Malaysia. The partnership aims to promote Selangor as a premier destination for education tourism, featuring joint marketing campaigns and student exchange programmes.
The initiative aligns with the Visit Selangor Year 2025 campaign and supports the goal of attracting eight million visitors and generating RM11.7 billion in tourism receipts by the end of next year.
Organised by Invest Selangor, the week-long programme positions Selangor as a globally connected and future-ready state.
The opening ceremony was graced by Tengku Amir Shah Ibni Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah Alhaj, Crown Prince of Selangor, alongside Menteri Besar of Selangor Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari; Selangor State Secretary Datuk Dr Ahmad Fadzli Ahmad Tajuddin; State Executive Councillor for Investment, Trade and Mobility Ng Sze Han; Malaysian Ambassador to Japan Datuk Shahril Effendi Abd Ghany; and Malaysia Pavilion director Ellyza Mastura Ahmad Hanipiah.
Amirudin said that Selangor represents the Malaysia of tomorrow that is dynamic, inclusive and globally connected.
"We are here to build bridges, deepen our ties with Japan and the global community, and spotlight Selangor's readiness to lead in sustainable development, industrial innovation and regional collaboration," he said in a statement.
"From energy transformation to education, tourism and creative industries, we are creating a state where technology, talent and culture work hand in hand to unlock long-term value. Through strategic partnerships and bold ideas, we are inviting the world to invest not only in our economy but in a shared and sustainable future."
A highlight of the week is the Selangor–Japan Investors Appreciation Awards, celebrating more than 60 years of Japanese contributions to Selangor's economic growth.
"The Japanese companies we honour today have played an instrumental role in our journey and we look forward to shaping the next chapter of growth together," added Amirudin.
"Selangor Week at Expo 2025 is more than a showcase—it is a statement of intent," Amirudin added. "We are here to deepen ties with Japan and the global community and demonstrate Selangor's readiness to lead in sustainable development, industrial innovation, and regional collaboration."
Ellyza echoed these sentiments: "With our target of securing RM13 billion in potential trade and investments as well as welcoming 1.5 million visitors, we remain steadfast in our mission to create a dynamic platform for engagement, innovation, and sustainable growth."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
6 hours ago
- The Star
Japan flexes its military muscle at China, and Trump
OKINAWA: The ship-slaying missiles of the Japanese army's 7th Regiment are mounted aboard dark green trucks that are easy to move and conceal, but for now, the soldiers are making no effort to hide them. Created in 2024, the fledgling regiment and its roving missile batteries occupy a hilltop base on the island of Okinawa that can be seen for miles. The visibility is intentional. The 7th is one of two new missile regiments that the army, called the Ground Self-Defence Force, has placed along the islands on Japan's south-western flank in response to an increasingly robust Chinese navy that frequently sails through waters near Japan. 'Our armaments are a show of force to deter an enemy from coming,' said Colonel Yohei Ito, the regiment's commander. China is not their only target. The display is also for the United States, and particularly President Donald Trump, who has criticised Japan for relying too heavily on the presence of US military bases for its security. The missiles are part of a defence build-up that is central to Japan's strategy for appealing to Mr Trump. While Tokyo is now deep in negotiations with Washington over lifting new tariffs, its top priority is improving security ties. On June 6, Japan's trade envoy, Ryosei Akazawa, met for 2½ hours in Washington with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Mr Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, for talks on a tariff-lifting deal that will probably see Tokyo promise large purchases of energy, computer chips and weapons. By adding new missiles and other advanced weapons, both American-made and domestically developed, Japan is transforming its long-restricted military into a potent force with the skills and technology to operate alongside America's ships and soldiers, to demonstrate that Japan is an indispensable partner. 'We want to be sure the US has our backs, and enhancing our conventional military capabilities is the way to do that,' said Nobukatsu Kanehara, who was deputy head of national security policy from 2014 to 2019 under then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 'We want to show President Trump that we are a valuable and essential ally.' Given the growing military strength of nearby China and also North Korea, Japan wants to upgrade the defence alliance with the US by becoming a fuller-fledged military partner and moving further from the pacifism enshrined in its constitution adopted after World War II. With the war in Ukraine stirring fears of a similar Chinese move on the democratic island of Taiwan, Japan announced in 2022 it would double spending on national security to about 2 per cent of gross domestic product. The resulting defence build-up is now under way. Japan is buying expensive weapon systems from the US like the F-35B stealth fighter and Tomahawk cruise missiles that will give Japan the ability to strike targets on enemy soil for the first time since 1945. The spending is also revitalising Japan's own defence industry. At a trade show in May near Tokyo, Japanese manufacturers displayed weapons currently under development, including a hypersonic missile, a laser system for shooting down drones, and a jet fighter to be built with Italy and Britain. Japan is also demonstrating a new resolve to fight alongside the US during a future crisis. When he visited Tokyo this spring, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth praised a plan to create a new 'war-fighting headquarters' in Tokyo where Japanese and American commanders will work side by side. 'During our discussions, I told him how Japan is making our own strong efforts to drastically strengthen our defence capabilities,' Mr Gen Nakatani, the Japanese defence minister, said after meeting with Hegseth. 'We face the most severe security environment that Japan has encountered since the end of the war.' It has been made even more severe by the uncertainty from Washington. While Japan's leaders and policymakers see strong support from Mr Hegseth and other hardliners on China, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, they remain worried about America First isolationists who could try to pull back the US military in Asia. There is also the unpredictability of Trump. Their biggest fear is that the US President might suddenly strike a grand strategic deal with China's leader, Xi Jinping, that would cede Japan and its neighbours to Beijing's sphere of influence. 'We need to convince Trump and the Maga (Make America Great Again) camp that Japan is too good to give away,' said Professor Satoru Mori, a professor of international politics at Keio University in Tokyo. 'It's in the US' interest not to let Japan fall into China's sphere.' The Chinese government has criticised Japan's acquisition of offensive weapons as a return to wartime militarism. Japan is hedging its bets by reaching out to other partners. In addition to the fighter plane jointly developed with Britain and Italy, it has strengthened defence relations with Australia, offering to sell it advanced Japanese-made frigates. Tokyo also sent a warship and soldiers to the Philippines in May to join a multinational military exercise for the first time. If Washington proves unreliable, Japan has an ultimate fallback: tonnes of plutonium stockpiled from its civilian nuclear power industry, which it could use to build a nuclear arsenal of its own. So far, the national trauma from the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has kept such an option off the table. 'We need to think about a Plan B, if the US does withdraw from Asia,' said Mr Kazuto Suzuki, director of the Institute of Geo-economics, a Tokyo-based think-tank. -- NEW YORK TIMES via The Straits Times/ANN
The Star
6 hours ago
- The Star
Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home
XINGYI, China (AFP): Surrounded by the rubble of demolished homes, Chen Tianming's ramshackle tower of faded plyboards and contorted beams juts into the sky in southwestern China, a teetering monument to one man's stubbornness. Authorities razed most of Chen's village in Guizhou province in 2018 to build a lucrative tourist resort in a region known for its spectacular rice paddies and otherworldly mountain landscapes. Chen, 42, refused to leave, and after the project faltered, defied a flurry of demolition notices to build his family's humble stone bungalow higher and higher. He now presides over a bewildering 10-storey, pyramid-shaped warren of rickety staircases, balconies and other add-ons, drawing comparisons in Chinese media to the fantastical creations of legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. "I started building out of practicality, trying to renovate and expand our home," Chen told AFP on a sweltering May afternoon as he climbed ladders and ducked wooden beams in his labyrinthine construction. "But then it became more of an interest and hobby that I enjoyed," he said. Chen's obsessive tinkering and lack of building permits continue to draw ire from the local government. The higher floors where he sleeps sway in the wind, and dozens of ropes and cables tether the house to the ground as if the whole thing might one day float away. "When I'm up here... I get the sense of being a nomad," Chen said, gazing out at apartment blocks, an airport and distant mountains. "People often say it's unsafe and should be demolished... but I'll definitely never let anyone tear it down." Chen Tianming standing near his house labelled China's strangest -- nail house -- households that refuse to move in the face of development plans -- in Xingyi, in southwest Guizhou province. Chen, 42, has spent seven years and over 100,000 yuan ($13,900) defying authorities' demolition notices to turn his family's humble stone bungalow on the outskirts of Xingyi city into a bewildering 10-storey pyramid-shaped home that has drawn comparisons on Chinese social media to the fantastical creations of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. -- Photo by Pedro PARDO / AFP - 'Nail house' - Local authorities once had big plans to build an 800-acre tourist resort -- including a theatre and artificial lake -- on Chen's native soil. They promised to compensate villagers, but Chen's parents refused, and he vowed to help them protect the home his grandfather had built in the 1980s. Even as neighbours moved out and their houses were bulldozed, Chen stayed put, even sleeping alone in the house for two months "in case (developers) came to knock it down in the night". Six months later, like many ill-considered development projects in highly indebted Guizhou, the resort was cancelled. Virtually alone among the ruined village, Chen was now master of a "nail house" -- a Chinese term for those whose owners dig in and refuse to relocate despite official compensation offers. A quirk of China's rampant development and partial private property laws, nail houses sometimes make headlines for delaying money-spinning construction projects or forcing developers to divert roads or build around shabby older homes. Even as Chen forged ahead, completing the fifth floor in 2019, the sixth in 2022 and the seventh in 2023, he continued to receive threats of demolition. Last August, his home was designated an illegal construction, and he was ordered to destroy everything except the original bungalow within five days. He says he has spent tens of thousands of yuan fighting the notices in court, despite losing several preliminary hearings. But he continues to appeal, and the next hearing has been delayed. "I'm not worried. Now that there's no one developing the land, there's no need for them to knock the place down", he said. Chen Tianming at his house labelled China's strangest -- nail house -- households that refuse to move in the face of development plans -- in Xingyi, in southwest Guizhou province. Chen, 42, has spent seven years and over 100,000 yuan ($13,900) defying authorities' demolition notices to turn his family's humble stone bungalow on the outskirts of Xingyi city into a bewildering 10-storey pyramid-shaped home that has drawn comparisons on Chinese social media to the fantastical creations of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. -- Photo by Pedro PARDO / AFP - Tourist attraction - In recent years, ironically, Chen's house has begun to lure a steady trickle of tourists itself. On Chinese social media, users describe it as China's strangest nail house, likening it to the madcap buildings in Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli masterpieces "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Spirited Away". As dusk falls, Chen illuminates his home with decorative lanterns, and people gather on the nearby dirt road to admire the scene. "It's beautiful," local resident He Diezhen told AFP as she snapped photos. "If there are no safety issues, it could become an (official) local landmark," she said. Chen said the house makes many visitors remember their whimsical childhood fantasies. "(People) dream of building a house for themselves with their own hands... but most can't make it happen," he told AFP. "I not only thought of it, I made it a reality." - AFP
New Straits Times
7 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home
XINGYI, China: Surrounded by the rubble of demolished homes, Chen Tianming's ramshackle tower of faded plyboards and contorted beams juts into the sky in south-western China, a teetering monument to one man's stubbornness. Authorities razed most of Chen's village in Guizhou province in 2018 to build a lucrative tourist resort in a region known for its spectacular rice paddies and otherworldly mountain landscapes. Chen, 42, refused to leave, and after the project faltered, defied a flurry of demolition notices to build his family's humble stone bungalow higher and higher. He now presides over a bewildering 10-storey, pyramid-shaped warren of rickety staircases, balconies and other add-ons, drawing comparisons in Chinese media to the fantastical creations of legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. "I started building out of practicality, trying to renovate and expand our home," Chen told AFP on a sweltering May afternoon as he climbed ladders and ducked wooden beams in his labyrinthine construction. "But then it became more of an interest and hobby that I enjoyed," he said. Chen's obsessive tinkering and lack of building permits continue to draw ire from the local government. The higher floors where he sleeps sway in the wind, and dozens of ropes and cables tether the house to the ground as if the whole thing might one day float away. "When I'm up here... I get the sense of being a nomad," Chen said, gazing out at apartment blocks, an airport and distant mountains. "People often say it's unsafe and should be demolished... but I'll definitely never let anyone tear it down." Local authorities once had big plans to build an 800-acre tourist resort – including a theatre and artificial lake – on Chen's native soil. They promised to compensate villagers, but Chen's parents refused, and he vowed to help them protect the home his grandfather had built in the 1980s. Even as neighbours moved out and their houses were bulldozed, Chen stayed put, even sleeping alone in the house for two months "in case (developers) came to knock it down in the night." Six months later, like many ill-considered development projects in highly indebted Guizhou, the resort was cancelled. Virtually alone among the ruined village, Chen was now master of a "nail house" – a Chinese term for those whose owners dig in and refuse to relocate despite official compensation offers. A quirk of China's rampant development and partial private property laws, nail houses sometimes make headlines for delaying money-spinning construction projects or forcing developers to divert roads or build around shabby older homes. Even as Chen forged ahead, completing the fifth floor in 2019, the sixth in 2022 and the seventh in 2023, he continued to receive threats of demolition. Last August, his home was designated an illegal construction, and he was ordered to destroy everything except the original bungalow within five days. He says he has spent tens of thousands of yuan fighting the notices in court, despite losing several preliminary hearings. But he continues to appeal, and the next hearing has been delayed. "I'm not worried. Now that there's no one developing the land, there's no need for them to knock the place down," he said. In recent years, ironically, Chen's house has begun to lure a steady trickle of tourists itself. On Chinese social media, users describe it as China's strangest nail house, likening it to the madcap buildings in Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli masterpieces Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away. As dusk falls, Chen illuminates his home with decorative lanterns, and people gather on the nearby dirt road to admire the scene. "It's beautiful," local resident He Diezhen told AFP as she snapped photos. "If there are no safety issues, it could become an (official) local landmark," she said. Chen said the house makes many visitors remember their whimsical childhood fantasies. "(People) dream of building a house for themselves with their own hands... but most can't make it happen," he told AFP.
