MIDA affirms more sustainable investment ecosystem for Malaysia this year
13 Jan 2022
The Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) has affirmed its commitment to build a more sustainable investment ecosystem for Malaysia this year.
The government, via MIDA, remains focused on attracting high-quality investments from foreign and domestic companies into Malaysia through various investment strategies and policy initiatives amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
MIDA chief executive officer Datuk Arham Abdul Rahman said the agency will focus on digitalisation to transition brick and mortar hubs into ‘smart factories’ to enhance flexibility and optimise productivity and growth remotely.
Arham said MIDA strives to ensure that Malaysia remains welcoming of investors by rolling out several game-changing measures to ease the challenges of operating businesses in the country while encouraging and facilitating the adoption of technology, innovation and research by companies.
“Looking towards 2022, MIDA encourages companies to accelerate the adoption of digitalisation and intensify research and development (R&D) activities to discover new technologies,” he said.
According to MIDA, Malaysia has also focused on pursuing more high quality, capital-intensive projects and those that support the sustainable development agenda of the nation.
Aligning to the Shared Prosperity Vision (SPV) 2030 and the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (RMK12), it said the country has been securing new investments that align well with Malaysia’s National Investment Aspirations (NIA) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles.
“The NIA is expected to propel Malaysia’s long-term growth through the flow of sustainable quality investment in new and complex growth areas,” it said.
To reflect this, MIDA has lined up targeted trade and investment missions (TIM) and Specific project Missions (SPM) to capture investments in high technology, innovation and research-driven industries that will complement the Malaysian industrial ecosystem.
MIDA has a pipeline of 477 projects with proposed investments of RM33.3 billion in the manufacturing and services sectors within the agency’s purview.
These include aerospace, electric vehicles, machinery and equipment, IC design, advanced electronics; advanced materials; fine chemicals; renewable energy such as photovoltaic; optics and photonics; display technology; petrochemical; pharmaceutical, medical devices, etc. food security, it said.
“As the coordinating central investment promotion agency and a one-stop centre for potential investments, we look forward to working collaboratively with the relevant investment promotion agencies to harness the competitive strengths of every state within Malaysia.” said Arham.
From January to September 2021, Malaysia attracted RM177.8 billion approved investments in the manufacturing, services and primary sectors and generated 79,899 job opportunities.
Within the first nine months of 2021, foreign direct investments (FDI) contributed RM106.1 billion, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of the total approved investments.
The remainder, 40.3per cent or RM71.7 billion, were channelled from domestic direct investments (DDI), thanks to the existing and new aspiring local companies meeting the growing industrial needs of different MNCs.
Source: NST
