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Malaysia’s first and Southeast Asia's third KidZania indoor theme park will open in a "yet again new mall" in Mutiara Damansara in 2012

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It has been confirmed that the developer of Mutiara Damansara, Boustead Holdings and Khazanah Nasional Bhd will be bringing the increasingly popular Kidzania international indoor theme park to Malaysia.

The indoor theme park will be housed in a RM80 million spanking new 7-storey mall, to be called Curve NX, also to be developed by Khazanah and Boustead. The location of the new mall is believed to be next to McDonald's drive-thru, opposite IKEA and near Tesco hypermarket.

"Kidzania Kuala Lumpur" will be a family entertainment centre, typically comprising a child-sized replica of a real city. The city is managed by children and has buildings, shops, streets and vehicles. The park is to allow children to learn about the adult world by actually engaging themselves in various professions within the 'city'. *Sounds cool?

The theme park was first created by theme park innovator, Luis Javier Laresgoiti and is the idea of Mexican businessman Xavier Lopez Ancona.

There are now an increasing number of Kidzania parks around the world, including in Mexico City, Monterrey, Tokyo, Jakarta while others are being planned for Dubai, Bangkok, Lisbon, Barcelona, Santiago and Seoul.

Last year, Khazanah Nasional roped in Danish toymaker to open its first Legoland theme park in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, neighbouring Singapore.

Japanese discount chain Daiso and British departmental store Debenhams were recent major openings in Mutiara Damansara. Major local corporations such as Nestle Malaysia, Dialog Group, TSR Bina, UAC, Batu Kawan and Mudajaya will soon move their offices to Mutiara Damansara and a new 5-star hotel will be built next to the Cineleisure complex.

www.kidzania.com