Kuala Lumpur, March 3 – Malaysia attracted RM207.9 billion in total approved investments that will fund 4,972 projects in the manufacturing, services and primary sectors in 2016, said te Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA).
These are expected to create 153,060 job opportunities for the country.
“The global economic landscape is undoubtedly more challenging. Headlines continue to highlight on the slowdown in world economies which led to weak aggregate demand, volatile international financial markets, subdued commodity prices, uncertain economic policies and more intense regional competition, among others,” said Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister of the International Trade & Industry (MITI), at the MIDA’s Malaysia Investment Performance Report briefing yesterday.
“Despite these challenges, Malaysia continued to sustain its investment growth momentum in 2016,” he added.
The Minister said that Malaysia has been more selective in its investment agenda, preferring quality projects in targeted ecosystems that will have significant knock-on effects throughout the domestic economy.
The ratio of foreign and domestic investments is also in line with the Government’s aspiration for domestic investments to assume the pivotal role of driving Malaysia’s investment agenda, with 71.6% (RM148.9 billion) being contributed by domestic sources and 28.4% (RM59.0 billion) coming from foreign sources. Foreign investors continue to capitalise on uniquely Malaysian ecosystems and its regional synergies as foreign direct investments (FDI) increased by 63.4% from RM36.1 billion in 2015.
Developed economies continued to be an important source of investments into Malaysia. The leading sources of foreign investments in 2016 were the USA, the Netherlands, China, Japan, Singapore, Republic of Korea and the UK. These seven countries jointly accounted for 55.8% of total foreign investments approved in the manufacturing, services and primary sectors.