Transformation for 1Borneo
KOTA KINABALU: Globa City’s high street project is poised to transform the locally frequented 1Borneo Hypermall into an international tourist and local hotspot in Sabah, if not Malaysia.
The man managing the whole project here, G Globa City Sdn Bhd project operations director, K K Tham, said, the Globa Festival Street is a one-stop centre focused on cultural and shopping experience that is missing in the state.
“Look around here, there are a lot of locals here. What they intend to do is to bring the tourists here,” he said at the Globa offi ce commencement ceremony and investors tour at 1Borneo Hypermall here yesterday.
“Now we have already started with some renovation on our souvenir centre. Our souvenir centre is around 60 units of shop lots in this shopping mall. We also started (renovations) on our restaurant, bistro, food and beverage (outlets).
“We try to make it easy for our tourists because there are four hotels in front there. We have got over 900 rooms in the hotels. That means, overall in the 1Borneo here per day, we have got over few thousand tourists in this shopping mall.
“I think these are the facilities that the tourists need, this is also a very good opportunity for all the tenants in the mall here, to bring up our tourism industry here. Now that we have already started, we will try to open end of June.
“We will try to finish the first stage of our Global Festival Street before this December. We try to catch it before Christmas.
This entire street, we put very important elements inside, which are cultural ones that will bring some Chinese culture and also various local Sabah culture into the makings of the theme for the street,” he explained.
Tham said, his ultimate goal is not only focused on tourism and business development in Sabah.
He elaborated that there are local investors but the major Chinese investments will bring in the capital for the Globa City project, and create business opportunities as well as employment for the local people.
“We are doing this with hopes that the Sabah Tourism Board, and the local people surrounding us will actually give us support on this because we are actually promoting Sabah,” said Tham.
“We hope that we will bring more investments to Sabah, not only tourists but also business to grow together with Sabah, economically, business-wise, and also cultural side.
“We are moving forward gradually. We have investment tours on a monthly basis. We will keep bringing in more. This is not the fi rst one. The fi rst was held in January, and this is the second.
“Total Chinese investment in Malaysia is worth USD320 billion and we hope that with our efforts, we can put in more investments from China into Malaysia. I hope that these (investments) can all come to Sabah,” he added.
Globa City executive director, Scott Lim, said around 100 people from China came to tour the project, which also consists of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and cafe yesterday.
“We will bring all the people who will invest in Sabah and who come at the same time for shopping and holiday. The government of China is very supportive in doing the tourism,” said Scott.
The company’s executive director, Chen Ji Zong, who hails from China, added that most tourists are unaware of the historical background of China.
“Most of the tourists who come to Sabah doesn’t know how Sabah exists, doesn’t know the history of it, doesn’t know the culture at all.
So what we are trying to do is to make sure that we create a street and let people understand the Sabah culture and its history.
Also at the event was executive director, George Lim.
Source: The Borneo Post
