‘Japan, Germany and US, not China, are our biggest investors’

(FMT) – One million Malaysians work for foreign investors in the country, says International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed.

He also said the top four investing nations were Japan, Germany, the United States and Singapore.

He denied Malaysia was dependent on China for investments.

“Our investors are diverse. It is just that in the last two or three years, there has been a higher flow of investments from China.

“China has been doing very well recently. In construction, they have been winning a lot of projects.

“They built the Bakun dam and a few power stations. They are very competitive.”

For a country of its size, however, its international annual trade with Malaysia stood at only 15.7%, compared with Asean’s 27%.

Mustapa spoke to reporters at the launch of the Smart Manufacturing and Automation Technology 2017 seminar, organised by Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) here.

He was fielding questions on whether Malaysia was becoming dependent on China, especially after the prime minister’s visit to China last October to ink deals worth RM143.64 billion with the country.

Mustapa said China was still new to manufacturing. For instance, he said, the Chinese were just beginning to open manufacturing plants, such as glass factories in Senawang and in Malacca, and a steel factory in Kuantan.

The Jeli MP was also asked about the distribution of foreign investment among the states, especially Penang and Selangor, which were considered the manufacturing hubs of Malaysia.

“The foreign companies choose the location and they go where there are good facilities. Pengerang in Johor is coming up with US$20 billion investments (RM89.2 billion) in oil and gas.

“Malacca, Sabah and Sarawak are also coming up.”

He said Kelantan had the least foreign investments. “There must be a reason. It is one of the least developed states. The (foreign investors’) decision depends on (the state’s) land policy and infrastructure.

“But we promote Malaysia as a whole. Not everything is in Penang and Selangor.”

He said to attract foreign investors, Malaysia had to be more efficient, transparent and able to provide proper infrastructure.

“We have to continue making improvements. Our policies are good but there needs to be seamless and smooth implementation of these policies.

“We need better infrastructure and we need to be transparent. That is what people want. We have to keep up with the times.”