KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 4): EU-Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EUMCCI) Chairman Roberto Benetello said Asian Development Bank estimated amount of US$600 billion infrastructure investment will be needed by South East Asian region from 2010-2020.

In his welcome speech at European exchange forum Smart cities today, Benetello said that transforming a regular city into a Smart City is costly and requires large investments. In addition, there are lesser budget to transform cities in the Asia Pacific compared to in the European region.

Benetello said it is expected to have 88 smart cities around the globe by 2025 and 32 of them will be located in the Asian Pacific region.

In conjunction with the decreasing natural resources, "One way to maintain a livable environment along with the such pressure (decreasing natural resources) is with the use of technology and evolution into a smart city," said Benetello, adding that the Smart City uses technology to make efficient use of physical infrastructure.

He added that the communications and multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Dr Salleh noted that if Malaysia must be a pioneer or early adopter of various types of solutions such as improving lives of citizens and providing a platform in which companies could foster the development of innovative solutions.

Having that said, he mentioned that the internet of things (ioT) implementations is estimated to generate RM9.5 billion gross national income by 2020 and RM42.5 billion by 2025. Moreover, it is also estimated that it will generate 14,270 high skilled employment opportunity by 2020.

EUMCCI, an organisation that facilitated the European businesses in entering the Asian and the Malaysian market has launched its very first European exchange forum Smart cities, sponsored by Madrid-based technolgy and consulting firm Indra Sistemas.