Attendants of the event at Matrade, organised by Ho Chin Soon Research and Hong Onn Enlightens, were treated to a line-up of experts speaking on the subject of Kuala Lumpur’s future

Agnes Wong, chartered accountant, property investor, and managing director of Syarikat Ong laid out an overview of the various legislative changes that have occurred in the past 35 years – illustrating previous cycles of booms and recessions, the sentiments of investors and homebuyers, and the actions of various figures (such as George Soros and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad) who played critical roles in shaping the nation’s current economic climate.

The underlying message of Agnes Wong’s talk seemingly being: we’ve had tough times before, and these things being cyclical, the good times will return. One of the highlights of Agnes Wong’s talk was a reframing of cooling measures such as the recently revised Real Property Gains Tax (RPGT) rates – not as a barrier to property investment as they may appear to some, but rather as a recurring measure that had only been relaxed with lower rates in previous years and recently shored up with the increasing of those rates.

In Agnes Wong’s view, the current property climate is less a product of the current state of the economy and more due to a change in mindset – from the old-school financial planning strategy of diligently saving a certain amount and only spending what was available, to one of spending as needed and only saving what money remained.

The father and son map-making duo of Ho Chin Soon Research, CEO Ismael Ho and Chairman Ho Chin Soon, provided their signature visual aids in the form of photographs acquired with drones and detailed map overlays in order to  summarise the various road and rail infrastructure projects that will bolster further growth in the Klang Valley and highlight the townships that will benefit from the value overflow.

Professor of Environlogy, Master David Koh (Xi-I-Tze), set the historical scene for the Klang Valley’s early years to show the how rapidly the area has progressed from a colonial tin-mining settlement to the grand urbanscape we have today.

Within Master David Koh’s historical perspective lay a nugget of wisdom that promises further growth and expansion of Malaysia’s capital. According to Master David Koh, Kuala Lumpur’s fortuitous geographical location, being enclosed with an ideal claw-shaped landform and in close proximity to a nearby watercourse (the Klang River), afforded the city with a guarantee for a future of further growth.

According to Master David Koh, “In Feng Shui, or environology, it is believed that any city – past, present, or future – if it doesn’t have a claw and a river within that claw, that city will never develop.” He went on to postulate that “in the whole of Malaysia, there is only one place having a river embraced by a claw – and that place is called Kuala Lumpur.”

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