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Running head: MALAYSIAN STUDIES HISTORY OF TAN SRI DATO SERI LIM GOH TONG

SEGi COLLEGE SUBANG JAYA

MPW 2133 MALAYSIAN STUDIES

STUDENT PARTICULARS:
Names: Tay Poh Chin (SCSJ-0005124)
Loo Weng Loon David (SCSJ-0005180)
Lee Sher Leen (SCSJ-0007766)
Topic: Malaysian Studies History of Tan Sri Dato Seri Lim
Goh Tong
Lecturer: Mr. Rao
Assignment Due Date: 17th March 2011
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Running head: MALAYSIAN STUDIES HISTORY OF TAN SRI DATO SERI LIM GOH TONG

Tan Sri Dato Seri Lim Goh Tong has always been a prominent figure in Malaysia. His

audacity to build a one of a kind casino in a conservative Malaysian region has definitely gain

respect and honor from entrepreneurs all around the world. He was very well renowned from

transforming an unexplored rural hilltop into a world class one of a kind hilltop casino resort.

Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong was born in 1918, a mountainous county in southeastern Fujian province,

China. Lim Goh Tong was the fifth child in his family. His father was Lim Shi Quan and his

mother was Goh Ban. He has an elder brother, three elder sisters, a younger sister and a younger

brother. Lim was born into a rustic environment in a village. During that time, China was in a

period of turmoil and unrest after the 1911 revolution, but life was relatively sheltered for Lim in

the village. He grew up peacefully and had the opportunity of studying in school. However,

disaster struck and his father died when he was 16. Lim was forced to leave school and he and

his elder brother had to be a bread winner of his family to enable continuous living for his

family.

Following those years, as China’s economy become worse, Lim Goh Tong decided to take a

risk and a foot step further in venturing out to Malaysia, following his cousin Lim Kheng

Chong's footstep. He left China through Xiamen in early February 1937 at the age of 19. He

worked for his uncle as a carpenter in the first two years while picking up and beginning to learn

the Malay language at the same time. After gaining experiences, he went on to become a

building sub-contractor and completed his first job of building a two-storey school. He returned

to Anxi in 1940, but went back to Malaya the next year amidst a deteriorating war environment

in China.

When the Japanese occupied Malaysia in 1942, Lim had a few near death experiences. During

the early Japanese Occupation, he earned a living as a vegetable farmer, but decided to switch to
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Running head: MALAYSIAN STUDIES HISTORY OF TAN SRI DATO SERI LIM GOH TONG

petty trading for a better living. Later on Lim ventured into scrap-metal and hardware trading.

When the Japanese occupation ended, there was an urgent demand for heavy machinery for

resumed operations in mines and rubber plantations, Lim seized the opportunity and engaged in

second-hand machinery trading, thus, making his first fortune. From used machinery trading,

Lim strayed into iron mining fortuitously. Lim joined as a partner in an iron mining company

which couldn't settle the outstanding payment of two bulldozers with him, and this proved to be a

successful venture as he earned a substantial amount of profit from the mining industry,

including forming a joint-venture tin mining company which was one of the first Chinese tin

companies to utilize dredges in mining tin. While dealing in heavy machinery, Lim accumulated

a wide range of reconditioned machines as well as a substantial amount of cash to move into

construction and related industries. In the name of his family construction company, Kien Huat

Private Limited, Lim began taking on several contracting jobs with help and guidance from his

uncle. Kien Huat Private Limited won accolades and became recognized as one of the leading

construction companies after successfully completing many major projects. Among the biggest

projects completed was the Ayer Itam Dam and it was the first time a local contractor had been

given a construction job of such magnitude. However, Lim faced the brink of bankruptcy when

his construction work was facing problems in the Kemubu Irrigation Scheme, but fortunately, he

managed to overcome the obstacles and thus, completed the project.

The following are the success keys that Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong swore by to be a man who is

in this altitude that who he is today:

1. Never make language barrier a limitation to succeed.

2. Be polite, humble and respectful to others.

3. When it comes to appointment and meeting, have a habit to be punctual.

4. Live a disciplined, simple life.

5. Make effort to carry something that you can write or jot down when you have anything

coming to mind.

6. Be bold yet cautious.

7. Believe the power of conviction.

8. Don’t make enemies.

9. If you build a successful business and organization, always believe that the most valuable

asset of a company is its people.

10. If you don’t have benefit and exposure to modern management, never doubt you can run

a company as big as Microsoft.

11. Employ a person or make business with a person when you trust him or her.

12. Do good to others; you will be rewarded somehow.

13. Prepare for personality makeover.

14. Be grateful for what you have. Life has been kind to us.

Following on, we are going to talk about Tan Sri Dato Seri Lim Goh Tong’s biggest

achievement and contribution to Malaysia that is Genting Highland the City of Entertaiment. The

idea of creating a hill resort located in proximity to Kuala Lumpur started off in the year of 1964

when Tan Sri Dato Seri Lim Goh Tong was in a business trip in Cameron Highland. He got this
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Running head: MALAYSIAN STUDIES HISTORY OF TAN SRI DATO SERI LIM GOH TONG

idea while enjoying the fresh and crisp air from the balcony of his hotel room. After a study of

maps and Kuala Lumpur’s vicinity he located the ideal site for his hill resort that is the 1,800-

metre Gunung Ulu Kali, just 55 km from Kuala Lumpur. The mission to transform a remote

mountain into Malaysia’s premier holiday destination seems impossible. However, it is not for

our Tan Sri Lim.

Following on his mission, a private company called Genting Highlands Berhad was set up on

27 April 1965, with the late Tan Sri Haji Mohammed Noah bin Omar. Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong

successfully obtained the approval for alienation or rights of 12,000 acres and 2,800 acres of land

from the Pahang and Selangor State Government respectively between the years 1965 and 1970.

There were certain restrictions that happened during the obtaining of the land approvals. The

Pahang state government swiftly approved a freehold lease, while the Selangor state reluctantly

approved a 99-year lease. As a result Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong went to meet the Menteri Besar of

Selangor, Dato Harun Idris and telling him that a freehold lease would be more feasible than a

99-year lease. Finally the Selangor state government agreed to grant him the freehold lease.

In 18th August 1965, a technical and construction team began their herculean task that took

them 4 years to complete the access road from Genting Sempah to the peak of Gunung Ulu Kali.

To ensure the smooth, sound and prompt construction of hotel-cum-resort (Genting Highlands

Resort), Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong devoted all of his time, resources, capital, even including his

family company reserves, Kien Huat Realty Berhad towards the making of this “dream resort”.

In 31st March 1969, the late YTM Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s first Prime Minister

graced the official laying of the foundation stone for the company’s pioneer, the then Highlands

Hotel, marking the succession of the access road to Genting Highlands Resort. The Prime
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Running head: MALAYSIAN STUDIES HISTORY OF TAN SRI DATO SERI LIM GOH TONG

Minister was amazed and impressed by how the private sector could develop a mountain resort

without the help of the Government. Subsequently in 1971, the first hotel at Genting Highlands

was successfully completed and was named Highlands Hotel (now renamed Theme Park Hotel).

Since the opening of the first hotel in 1971, Genting Highlands Resort continued to grow

from strength to strength. The development of this resort is still going on until today. To date,

Genting Highlands Resort has five hotels (namely Genting Hotel, Highlands Hotel, Resort Hotel,

Theme Park Hotel and First World Hotel) and two apartment blocks (Ria and Kayangan

Apartments) at the hilltop and Awana Genting Highlands Golf and Country Resort. Besides that,

with integrated world-standard entertainment facilities encompassing various leisure indoor and

outdoor theme parks and also gaming facilities, Genting Highlands Resort has become the "City

of Entertainment" and Malaysia's Premier Resort.

Amazingly, Genting Highlands Resort further boosted its facility attraction by creating the

Genting Skyway cable car system in the year 1997. The cable car system provides a 3.38 km

transport to the hilltop. Genting Skyway is also recognised as the "World's Fastest Mono Cable

Car System" with a maximum speed of 21.6 km per hour and the "Longest Cable Car in

Malaysia and Southeast Asia".

Finally, Genting Highlands Resort is sometimes informally known as the Las Vegas of

Malaysia, dubbed the “City of Entertainment” as it is the only legal land-based casino, Casino de

Genting in the country and is run by Genting Malaysia Bhd, a subsidiary of Genting Group. Until

now Genting Highlands Resort is still a popular place for vacation for Malaysians and even the

tourists of other countries such as Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia and so on. Thanks to the
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Running head: MALAYSIAN STUDIES HISTORY OF TAN SRI DATO SERI LIM GOH TONG

late hard work of the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, all of us enjoyed so much fun time on his well

known Genting Highlands Resort.

In 1945, Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong was married to Puan Sri Lee Kim Hua. After their

marriage, together they had six children and nineteen grandchildren. The names of the six

children are Lim Siew Lay, Lim Siew Lian, Lim Siew Kim, Lim Tee Keong, Lim Kok Thay and

Lim Koh Fong or also known as Chee Wah. Lim Goh Tong and family have an enormous

fortune from self made. With an estimated current net worth of around $4.2 billion, he is ranked

by Forbes in 2007 as the 205th-richest person in world. On 31th December 2003, he was retired

and handed his chairmanship of Genting Group over to his son, Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay.

Throughout his life, Lim Goh Tong had a few medical crises. Among them are malignant tumor

and cardiovascular problems. He managed to survive after several surgeries. He wrote his

autobiography "My Story - Lim Goh Tong" and it was published in 2004. In the book he wrote

about his early life, how he started off from nothing to building a world-class casino resort

through hard work, determination and the people he acknowledges.

Through his life, he won and achieved a lot of awards together with his company Genting

Group for his entrepreneurship and his contribution. For instance, he won Malaysian

Entrepreneurs Award in 1985, Manager of the Year Award in 1986, and Business Achiever of

the Year Award in 1994. He won two awards straight at the same year in 1996 for Number 1

ranking of 10 Malaysian Leading Companies and The Best Employer Award. He also won TTG

Asia Media’s 16th Travel Awards and was conferred an honorary Degree of Doctor of

Entrepreneurship by University Tunku Abdul Rahman in 2005. Besides, Lim Goh Tong is a

generous and humble man. He also cared for future generation. In 1978, He set up his most

notable charity group called “Yayasan Lim”, a family foundation that donates regularly to
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Running head: MALAYSIAN STUDIES HISTORY OF TAN SRI DATO SERI LIM GOH TONG

educational and medical institutions, old folk's homes, various organizations for the physically

handicapped and other charitable causes. He was given the title “Tan Sri” by the government of

Malaysia on 6th June 1979 in recognition to the contributions he had did for the country.

Lim Goh Tong passed away peacefully at 11.20 am on 23th October 2007 at Subang Jaya

Medical Centre (SJMC). He died at 90 years old due to old age. His body was laid to rest at

Gohtong Memorial Park at Gohtong Jaya on 29th October 2007. The park, which sites a

mausoleum for the late tycoon, is about 1km from Lim's residence. More than 20,000 people,

including royalty, Asia’s rich and famous, politicians, friends, business allies, artist and members

of the public paid tribute to him in their own ways. American hip hop group, Black Eyed Peas

who were performing for the night of 26th October in Genting Arena of Stars also paid tribute to

Lim Goh Tong during their concert. Condolence messages and tributes poured in from political

and business leaders in the country and overseas that paid their respect to him include: Dato’ Seri

Ong Ka Ting, Dato' Seri Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak, Tun Dr

Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, Tan Sri Dr Saleha Mohd Ali, Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, Foxwoods

Resort Casino Tribal Chairman Michael Thomas and a lot more. More than 1000 wreaths

received from all over the world are being displayed 300m along the entrance of Gohtong Villa.

Among the many corporate entities sent wreaths and condolences included Las Vegas Caesars

Palace, Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, Stanley Ho and the Government of Fujian

province where Lim Goh Tong was born. Asia’s first richest man, Li Ka Shing also sent a

personal condolence note to the family. Former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad

Badawi described Lim Goh Tong’s death as a great loss to the country and all Malaysians while

former MCA president Dato’ Seri Ong Ka Ting said he was a model figure to all Malaysians.