KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — Malaysia recorded a total of RM264.6 billion approved investments last year which translated to 4,454 projects creating 140,370 job opportunities, said Minister of Domestic Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz today.

He added that the service sector dominated last year's total approved investments which recorded 3,581 projects worth RM154 billion, or 58 per cent of the total sum.

"This represents a 58.8 per cent increase over the previous year's investments of RM97 billion, which is expected to create 63,464 new jobs,” said Tengku Zafrul during the annual announcement of Malaysia’s Investment Performance in the Manufacturing, Services, and Primary Sectors 2022 at MIDA Sentral this morning.

He added that the information and communications sub-sector formed the majority of the services sector, with approved investments value standing at RM84.7 billion or 55 per cent.

In his speech, he shared that some of the notable investments from the services sector came from ByteDance System Sdn Bhd which runs TikTok Malaysia, Amazon Web Services, and Mamee Double Decker Distribution (M) Sdn. Bhd.

Meanwhile, Malaysia recorded RM84.3 billion of approved investments in the manufacturing sector with the electrical and electronic industry leading the way with RM29.3 billion in investments.

This is followed by machinery and equipment (8.4 billion), transport equipment (RM8.0 billion), chemicals and chemical products (RM7.4 billion), and petroleum products including petrochemicals (RM5.9 billion).

Tengku Zafrul added that the notable projects in the manufacturing sector included investments made by Samsung SDI Energy Malaysia Sdn Bhd, TF-AMD Microelectronics (Penang) Sdn Bhd, and Ferrotec Manufacturing Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

The minister added the country recorded approved investments in the primary sector which totalled RM26.3 billion or 9.9 per cent of the total sum.

He said that the mining industry received RM24.0 billion of investments, accounting for 91.3 per cent of total investments approved in this sector.

When asked by reporters about the cause of the 13.6 per cent decline in last year’s total approved investments compared to the previous report that recorded RM306.5 billion, the minister said that this is due to two large one-time foreign direct investments in Malaysia in 2021.

"If we look at 2022, it’s still the second-highest approved investment recorded in Malaysia. But there were two very large investments that happened in 2021 that are one-off in nature.

"They are from Intel Electronics and Risen Solar, whose total amount is nearly RM100 billion,” he said.