Knight Frank’s Asia-Pacific head researcher Nicholas Holt said Malaysia needed to be more transparent and encourage free market practices in order to keep up with Singapore, which ranked third in their Global Cities 2016 report. ― Picture by Saw Siow Feng

KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 — Malaysia’s capital and other cities behind Singapore in a “global city” ranking require significant improvement in a variety of areas before they are competitive against the city-state, world property consultancy firm Knight Frank said today.

Its Asia-Pacific head researcher Nicholas Holt said aspiring competitors needed to be more transparent and encourage free market practices in order to keep up with Singapore, which ranked third in Knight Frank’s Global Cities 2016 report.

“Singapore, it’s the transparency, it’s the ease of doing business, to set up a business, it comes in at the top in terms of setting up a business.

“When you come into Malaysia, there’s a lot of red tape, uncertainty, thinking, ‘Is something going to happen?’

“So I think there’s quite a long way to go,” Holt said after launching Knight Frank’s Wealth 2016 report.

He added that Malaysia needed to be more open to business ventures from abroad, a trait other major cities like Singapore, London and New York, have embodied and which enabled them to be successful.

“So for KL to truly become an international and global city it would have to have lots of reform and it has to really capture demand from corporates and investors globally ahead from places like Singapore which would be a tough task,” Holt said.

But Holt also noted that Kuala Lumpur was making various improvements to its infrastructure, such as the light rail transit (LRT) extension and the new mass rapid transit (MRT), which will get it closer to becoming a “global city”.

Knight Frank later clarified that Holt was speaking on a global level and had not meant to comment specifically about Malaysia.

The top two spots on Knight Frank’s Global Cities 2016 went to London and New York respectively.

Hong Kong coming in fourth, followed by Dubai on fifth.

Malaysia was not listed in the report which only ranks the top 10 “global cities” in the world.

He added that Singapore also benefited when the former British colony returned to China as a special administrative region, creating an opening for the city-state to position itself as the preferred financial services centre in the region.

"And then in 1997 Hong Kong went back to the Chinese; that was the opportunity for Singapore really to push their banking and finance and their wealth management centre outside of Hong Kong within Asia and now when people say 'Hong Kong or Singapore' they go with Singapore," he said.

He added that instead of competing with Singapore, Malaysia could instead aim to complement the neighbouring country by focusing on other aspects like Islamic finance.

According to the Knight Frank Global Cities website, the cities selected "explored the future of the built environment, and is intended to help investors, occupiers and city planners with their future business strategy."