Samsung CandT Corp., a major South Korean general trading firm and builder, said Thursday it has completed a 118-story skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur, the second-tallest building in the world. An opening ceremony was held Wednesday for Merdeka 118, a 679-meter-high complex building in the central part of the Malaysian capital, said Samsung CandT, the trading, construction, fashion and resort arm of Samsung Group, South Korea's top conglomerate. It is the world's second-highest building and structure after the Burj Khalifa at 828 meters in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, which Samsung completed in 2009. Merdeka 118, with a total floor space of some 673,900 square meters, is a multipurpose building that houses offices, a high-end hotel and a shopping mall, it said, adding the amount of steel bars used measures about 40,000 kilometers. Samsung CandT said the completion of Merdeka 118 has cemented its top global status as a builder of skyscrapers. In 1998, Samsung CandT completed the 452-meter-high Petronas Tw in Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the then highest building in Malaysia, and has since built several other high-rise buildings in the country. Source: Yonhap News Agency