KUCHING: ICOM Square Management and e-hailing service GRAB, in an effort to provide more convenience for the public, are offering a special designated zone for picking and dropping off GRAB passengers.
The special designated zone at ICOM Square here was launched by Minister for Local Government and Housing, Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian, yesterday.
According to ICOM Square property manager, Louise Sim, the square is home to more than 100 corporate offices with a wide range of food and beverage outlets.
Thus, the square is constantly packed with customers during launch hours with numerous patrons from the square and its vicinity.
While ICOM Square has over 1,200 surface and multi-storey parking lots, the popular parking spots are usually occupied by the office goers. Hence, visitors would tend to park illegally for convenience sake.
The collaboration encourages those seeking convenience to share a GRAB among co-workers when commuting to ICOM Square for lunch. This will not only be cost effective but also time efficient.
Speaking after the launching of the GRAB’s pick up and drop off stand at ICOM Square, Sim revealed that the partnership is one of the many e-related objectives at the square.
With companies and organisations already making their headquarters at ICOM Square, the square has become the digital innovation hub of Kuching.
Thus, she explained, collaborating with an e-hailing app service-based company is most appropriate.
Plans are also on the drawing board to gather more tech corporations and e-commerce companies to position themselves at ICOM Square.
Meanwhile, Dr Sim said ICOM Square is not only a digital hub but also a place with many food courts and as usual, it is always hard to find parking space there.
“The way to solve parking issue nowadays is not through building more parking spaces.
“It’s more like, ‘you don’t drive, someone else drive for you.’ This new technology will change the way of public transport and urban planning.
“It might be cheaper not to have a car than to own a car. On average, a car may cost you RM10,000 a year with its capital, maintenance, looking for parking spaces and so on.
“With Grab or other new type of service, you will find that it may be cost-saving. If you don’t have a car, why do you need to pay for the parking space?
“For an apartment or a condominium, you have to pay for the parking space, but the land title or strata title do not include parking space,” he said, adding that if that was taken into consideration, one could actually save quite a lot.
“Like what AirAsia’s Group CEO said, ‘the aeroplane must be always in the air and not on the ground. Likewise, our cars must always move around and not left idle in the carpark,” Dr Sim stressed.
To kick off the new partnership, ICOM Square is giving out 1,000 promo codes for those visiting the square. The promo codes GRABICOM will be valid daily from 8am to 8pm, for one month starting March 7 (today).
GRAB users selecting ICOM Square as their destination will get a discount of RM5 per trip.
Presently, there are thousands of GRAB drivers in Kuching city.
Also present at the press conference were the Executive Director of Nationlink Group of Companies, Chai Kun Seng, GRAB Borneo Region Manager Kelvin Lam, Founder cum Chairman of iCube Innovation, Dato Patrick Liew and GRAB City Manager Hazwan Razak.
