Marginal rise in total approved investments last year, says minister

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — Total approved investments in the manufacturing, services and primary sectors increased to RM201.7 billion last year from RM200.6 billion in 2017, International Trade and Industry Minister Darell Leiking said.

He said these investments were from 4,887 projects that would create over 129,700 job opportunities.

“The pie was split between domestic direct investment, which represented a 60.1 per cent share at RM121.2 billion, and foreign direct investment (FDI), which accounted for the remaining 39.9 per cent or RM80.5 billion,” he told reporters in conjunction with the release of the Malaysia Investment Performance Report here today.

He said foreign investors continued to capitalise on the uniquely Malaysian ecosystems and its regional synergies, as FDI increased by 48 per cent to RM80.5 billion from RM54.4 billion in 2017.

Darell said the manufacturing sector emerged as the champion of the three sectors, recording a significant margin with approved investments totalling RM87.4 billion last year, up 37.2 per cent from RM63.7 billion in 2017.

Darell said the services and primary sectors recorded investments of RM103.4 billion and RM10.9 billion, respectively, in 2018.

“Foreign investments in approved manufacturing projects more than doubled to RM58 billion in 2018 from 2017’s figure of RM21.6 billion, constituting 66.4 per cent of the total approved investments in the manufacturing sector,” he said.

This, he said, reflected the country’s success in its targeted approach to attract investments in high value-added and knowledge-intensive industries.

“China, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Japan and the United States were the largest contributors to the manufacturing sector in Malaysia last year,” Darell said.

The five countries jointly accounted for 76.4 per cent of the total foreign investments approved in the sector.

Darell said 69.5 per cent of FDI were in new projects, with the remaining being expansion and diversification projects.

He said this showed that in addition to existing foreign companies expanding or diversifying in the country, more international investors were choosing Malaysia as their preferred investment destination.

“A total of 37.3 per cent of manufacturing projects approved will see companies making Malaysia their hub for the international market, whereby 80 per cent of their products will be exported,” he said.

He said petroleum products industry, including petrochemicals, contributed the lion’s share to the overall performance in the manufacturing sector with approved investments of RM32.9 billion.

Darell said the services sector remained the country’s largest contributor to the total approved investments. Domestic investments contributed 84.1 per cent of investments in the sector.

 “Foreign investors were strong in the distributive trade and global establishment subsectors. These two subsectors alone contributed 55.8 per cent of the total foreign investment in the services sector,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said approved investments in the primary sector decreased 12.2 per cent last year from 2017 largely due to lower investment in oil and gas exploration activities.

On prospects, he said the ministry expected the level of investment to maintain at about RM200 billion this year.

To date, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority has 399 manufacturing and services projects with investments totalling RM23.7 billion in the pipeline.

“We look forward to the realisation of these projects and many more towards a dynamic economy for Malaysia,” he said. — Bernama