PUTRAJAYA, Dec 16 — The East Coast Economic Region (ECER), which celebrated its fifth anniversary recently, has achieved over 50 per cent of its target of RM110 billion in investments by 2020.
In a statement issued at a special function to announce the investments by 12 companies at the growth region, the ECER said it will close the year on a strong note with investments worth RM55.8 billion since 2007 to now and creating 55,000 job opportunities.
Also present was Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
Najib, who is also finance minister, witnessed the exchange of documents between ECER Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Jebasingam Issace John, and senior officials of the investment companies here today.
ECER said the RM55.8 billion investments comprised manufacturing (RM34.1 billion, or RM61.1 per cent); tourism (RM9.9 billion, 17.7 per cent), logistics (RM4.3 billion, RM7.7 per cent); and infrastructure (RM3 billion, 5.4 per cent).
“The others included oil and gas (RM1.6 billion, 2.9 per cent); real estate (RM1.3 billion, 2.3 per cent); education (RM1 billion, 1.8 per cent) and agriculture (RM600 million, 1.1 cent),” it said.
For this year, ECER has attracted attract investments worth RM11.84 billion, approved investments of RM11.84 billion and committed investments of RM16.62 billion, it said.
“The approved and committed investments have exceeded ECER’s 2013 target by RM8 billion and RM15 billion respectively,” it said.
It said ECER was confident of attracting investments of RM20 billion in 2014, with RM5 billion targeted by the first quarter of next year. — Bernama
