KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 22): Shares in Iskandar Waterfront City Bhd (IWCity) continued to rise this morning on the back of talks of possible revival of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), which improved sentiment on Malaysia's mega projects currently under scrutiny.

At 9:42am, shares of IWCity rose 12.7% or 7.5 sen to 66.5 sen, with 50.35 million shares traded. The stock was the most actively traded counter on Bursa Malaysia.

*IWCity up 26% as possible ECRL revival boosts sentiment on construction projects

Over the past year, IWCity shares fell 50.7% from RM1.35.

theedgemarkets.com reported yesterday that the counter jumped as much as 13 sen or 26.8%, before closing at 59 sen with 82.53 million shares traded.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said yesterday the government is "hopeful" that the ECRL can be revived at a lower price, pending a decision from the ongoing discussion with China by April.

This development follows an earlier Bloomberg report which quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah as saying that the negotiation on the ECRL is "in the last mile".

The ECRL project, which was initiated by the previous government, was halted and being reviewed by the new government, due to inflated costs and unfavourable contract terms to Malaysia.

IWCity was in the run-up to participate as the master developer of another mega project, the Bandar Malaysia mixed development, with an estimated gross development value of RM160 billion.

The halting of a series of projects linked to the Bandar Malaysia development, which includes the KL-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) and termination of a 60% stake sale in the project to IWCity in July last year, has led to the project not moving forward — with no new master developer being included. — theedgemarkets.com

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