The Free Trade Zone (multinational companies/fatories) is situated in Bayan Baru. The Free Trade Zone here is really huge with companies like Intel, Hewlett Packard, Iomega, Seagate, Hitachi, Philips, B.Braun Medical Industries, Robert Bosch, AMD and many other huge corporations/factories. Thousands of people are employed in the factories here. Malaysia is the largest chipmaker in the world. The labour market is very tight and many employers have to resort to employing foreign workers from Indonesia, Philipines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and so on. There are also a lot of expatriates from United States, Germany, Japan and France, to name a few.
Bayan Baru has prospered and developed a lot because of the Free Trade Zone and many business are shifting their operations from the main city center in Georgetown to Bayan Baru.
The Penang International Airport is only about 5 minutes drive away from Bayan Baru.
Here is a view of part of Bayan Baru. This
picture was taken from Hotel Equatorial, also in Bayan Baru. Right at the back
of the pictures are some of the factories. It also shows part of the Bukit Jambul Golf
Course and some of the medium and low-cost apartments.
The picture on the right is another
view of part of Bayan Baru. Most of the land in Bayan Baru is owned by a State Corporation
called PDC (Penang Development Corporation) and the houses or apartments here
sold are based on a 99 year leasehold. The price of houses here in recent years
have sky-rocketted to unbelievable and unreasonable value because of the development
and great employment opportunities. A semi-detached single storey house with about 3,000 sq ft
of land can cost from RM350.00 - half a million dollars here, and these are not
luxurious houses but supposed to be low/medium cost houses and leasehold.
Click here to view the town center of Bayan Baru.
This shopping complex is fairly new. Completed in 1997
and situated in Bukit Jambul, Bayan Baru. It's a huge complex with an indoor ice-skating ring,
several cineplexes, bowling alleys and many, many stores to shop till you drop !
Click here to view BJ Shopping Complex. To see what it looks like from the interior of a shopping complex, click here. This picture shows only about 1/12 or less of part of the shopping complex.
These are what we called shophouses in Malaysia.
Normally, they are 2-3 storey buildings, all connected together in a row. The shophouses
shown here are right in front of the BJ Shopping Complex.
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