KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19 — Malaysia needs to enhance the transparency of government policymaking, market professionalism and data information in order to attract foreign institutional investors to its property sector.
International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI)-USA Secretary-General Bill Endsley said a higher level of transparency would enable foreign investors, as outsiders, to have a better understanding of the functions of the local market.
“According to the Global Competitiveness Report 2016- 2017, Malaysia’s transparency of government policymaking is ranked 22nd among 138 economies, while Singapore tops the list and Hong Kong is fourth.
“That is why international institutional investors prefer to invest in cities over Malaysia,” he said in his presentation at the half-day International Property Market Perspectives and Practices workshop here, today.
On market professionalism, Endsley said advisors of the local fund managers had to be able to speak the languages of the foreign investors.
“Foreign investors will easily understand the terms, such as yield and internal rate of return if you could speak their languages,” he said, adding that the next would be data information.
With clearer data provided, he said investors could obtain information such as sales price and the cost per square foot of the property to enable them to make an analysis.
“From the analysed data, one would be able to get a buyer without asking around, because you already have the needed information from the data,” he said.
However, Endsley said Malaysia’s property market remained competitive compared with its regional peers.
“Malaysia has been ranked 31th for its property rights index in the Global Competitiveness Report 2016- 2017, higher than Indonesia (60th), the Philippines (81th) and Thailand (93th),” he said.
For the overall competitiveness index, he said Malaysia stood is placed 25th against Thailand (34th), Indonesia (41th) and the Philippines (57th). — Bernama
