While he admitted many MSC companies have not moved their operations to the former palm oil estate land, labelled by the Malaysians as a testbed for new information technologies, Mahathir said these companies were still operating within the confined area of the corridor.
"Many of these companies are not here yet because the various infrastructure to support these IT projects are not up yet," he told reporters after launching Motorola's new software center due to be moved to Cyberjaya by the end of next year.
But Mahathir added the government was ahead of schedule, saying the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC) have succeeded in drawing 34 world-class knowledge-based companies to set up some sort of office here in the country. MDC aims to have 50 such firms here by 2003.
"And we already have some 300 local IT companies in the MSC, more than half the 500 we are aiming for by 2003," the Prime Minister stressed.
He also said while the economic crisis did somewhat give the government some problems in its efforts to develop the MSC, the country's committment toward the project did not waver and will not do so in the future.
On another issue, Mahathir said he hoped Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT) would purchase a stake in the state-owned telephone company Telekom Malaysia.
"They (NTT) are very serious about Telekom. I hope the deal could be done by this year," Mahathir added.
Earlier in his speech, he said Motorola's commitment to set up a hi-tech software center and using Malaysian staff augured well for the MSC. He hoped more big names would come to MSC in the wake of Motorola's announcement.
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