KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian state of Johor said its economic zone, which has the nation’s largest number of Middle Eastern investors, should be unscathed by the Dubai debt crisis, reports said on Sunday. The chief minister of southern Johor state, Abdul Ghani Othman, told the Star daily only one Dubai company, Damac Properties, had invested in the Iskandar special economic zone.

An aide to Othman said total investment for Iskandar, which was launched in 2006, had hit $13 billion so far, with about 15 per cent coming from Middle Eastern investors. Almost three times bigger than neighbouring Singapore, the Iskandar region will be Malaysia’s largest economic zone upon completion in 2025, when it hopes to have created 800,000 jobs and attracted around $100 billion.