PETALING JAYA: Despite the challenging economic environment, businesses are continuing to invest, expand and diversify their projects in Malaysia, said the International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti).
Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said investors, particularly those who already have a presence in the country, continued to view Malaysia as their profit centre.
Investors, he said, liked Malaysia for its highly diversified economy, strong manufacturing foundation, developed infrastructure and connectivity, proactive government policies and multilingual workforce, among other reasons.
Speaking to reporters at a media conference at the Equatorial Hotel, Penang, Mustapa said Malaysia’s position as a preferred location for investments was reflected by the performance of the country’s approved investments in the manufacturing, services and primary sectors.
In the first quarter of 2016, the country recorded a total of 1,271 projects with investments of RM37.3bil, which he said will create 39,990 job opportunities.
Domestic investments led with RM24.5bil or 65.7% of total approved investments, while foreign direct investment increased to RM12.8bil during the quarter, from RM10.0bil in the previous year.
Mustapa noted that some of these companies such as Haemonetics, Osram Opto Semiconductor, UMW Rolls Royce, Infineon, X-Fab Sarawak, Oncogen Pharma, Honeywell, Schmidt + Clemens (S+C), Abbott, Boston Scientific, KLS Martin, JCY Group, HP and Coca-Cola were among those which recently announced advance stages of their project.
These companies, he said, will create over 6,000 employment opportunities for Malaysians and are expected to generate RM4.1bil in exports annually.
Following a visit to the facility of SAM Precision (M) Sdn Bhd, which is an arm of Sam Engineering & Equipment
(SAM Malaysia), Mustapa said the group continued to view Malaysia as a profitable investment destination.
“With the positive outlook of the aerospace industry, capability of Malaysia’s local supporting companies and the availability of talent pool for precision machining, SAM Malaysia has announced that it will be spending more than RM100mil over the next two years for expansion,” he said.
This, he said, included the diversification project of SAM Precision to manufacture thrust reverser machined parts for the aerospace industry, the first of its kind in Malaysia.
The company currently manufactures precision tools for the electronics industry.
He also cited two examples of Malaysian companies that continued to expand their business in the country - RC Precision Engineering and Mi Equipment.
Homegrown Malaysian company RC Precision Engineering which is involved in contract manufacturing, building OEM equipment, is expected to further invest RM8.5mil for a project this year.
Mi Equipment, which specialises in Wafer Level Chip Scale Package (WLCSP), has plans to invest RM65mil for its expansion project.
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