NOWADAYS, more strangers are stopping by his fruit stall in Gelang Patah. Business has improved for 48-year-old Abdul Aziz Layong.

This makes the father of four school-going children feel more encouraged to open his stall daily.

His routine is to man the stall until his wife, Azlina Arshad, takes over in the afternoon. From then on, he attends to his job as the village head of Kampung Ulu Pulai, a community of about 200 households with more than 1,300 people.

Life for Aziz and those in some 40 other small villages in Pontian, located within the Nusajaya area in the Iskandar Development Region, has visibly improved.

Most of them live on land they own, work as civil servants, in the private sector or are self-employed. They are seeing the multiplier effects of the development taking shape in Iskandar.

"Things have changed. Land prices have rocketed, people are moving into the villages, creating opportunities for landowners to build houses for rent and provide retail space and services, all of which are increasing in demand."

Aziz said the villagers would always welcome Iskandar's development as long as they did not have to part with their land.

Land prices have soared to between RM500,000 to RM600,000 (S$219,250 to S$263100) per acre in Kampung Ulu Pulai and surrounding villages, compared with RM250,000 an acre before the mammoth development plan was launched.

The villagers, Aziz said, were not keen to sell their land to brokers who make tireless trips from all over the country to negotiate sales.

Some landowners want their villages to be given a facelift and remain as traditional kampungs, and perhaps turned into tourist attractions.

Others are hoping the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (Irda) will help them find interested parties, especially government-linked companies, to jointly develop their land.

The setting up of the Social Projects Fund (SPF) to finance social and community initiatives in Iskandar is another reason why the people have embraced the development corridor.

"The SPF allows investors to contribute back to Iskandar to ensure a more holistic aproach to development in the region," Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman, the co-chairman of Irda, said when announcing the fund on Tuesday.

"This fund will be good for the people because the investors are required to contribute to our well-being. It is a fair deal since they are enjoying tax exemptions," Aziz said.

An initial sum of RM50 million from investors who pledged to develop Iskandar will be used for housing, skills programmes for youth and the provision of free pre-schooling for the poor.

The fund will mute criticism that Iskandar only benefits big foreign investors at the expense of the local population.

Ghani said it was the outsiders who seem to be against the development project. The people within it are generally receptive as long as they are not displaced.

Pas claims that Iskandar profits foreigners and that the Malays in particular will be left out when property prices become too expensive.

The party also warns Johoreans to be wary of the "invasion" of Singaporeans into the development region.

A delegate of Johor Pas criticised Iskandar at last year's Pas muktamar in Kelantan.

Ten thousand booklets titled Antara Impian Dan Realiti were distributed throughout Johor three months ago, and more will be sent out during the general election campaign period.

A Pas official said two more pamphlets on Iskandar, totalling 300,000 copies, were also in circulation throughout the country.

"Iskandar is not a local issue in Johor, it is a national and Malay issue to Pas," the official said.

The DAP, on the other hand, charged that Iskandar, like the other development corridors launched by the BN government over the past year, was only meant for the Malays.

But Parti Keadilan Rakyat Johor Baru division secretary Vincent D'Silva does not think Iskandar is a big election issue, saying that the main concerns are the high crime rate in Johor Baru and the economy, especially among the Chinese.

Datuk Maulizan Bujang, the Tiram assemblyman, dismissed allegations that the poor had no place in Iskandar. He said squatters had been provided low-cost houses that were affordable for purchase or rent.

"Iskandar is being exploited by the opposition. The DAP is saying that the Chinese are marginalised, while Pas politicises whatever it can possibly think of to woo support.

"But the people are not buying any of it because they can see that the development taking place, such as the upgrading of roads and other infrastructure, will benefit them," he said.

According to Ghani, Iskandar is on course to reach its target of RM47 billion in investments by 2010, with RM16 billion coming from the manufacturing sector.

Since its inception in November 2006, Irda has announced a total of RM14.7 billion in investments, foreign and local.

"This means that we are on track to achieve the total investment target of RM47 billion by 2010, because, as of now, we have already attracted almost RM22 billion worth of investments, excluding the RM6.5 billion allocation under the Ninth Malaysia Plan," Ghani said.

Calculated to generate eight per cent economic growth annually, Iskandar, covering a land size of 221,634 hectares with more than 1.3 million people or more than 40 per cent of the state's population, is poised to bring on an influx of foreign and high-level corporate investments.

"We are seeing a repeat of the Malaysian experience in terms of development in specific areas. Why must people harbour suspicions about Iskandar?" Ghani asked.