SHAH ALAM: Selangor recorded a jump of 238% in total approved investment in THE manufacturing sector at RM18.95 billion last year compared with RM5.59 billion in 2017, the highest ever direct investment so far.
Speaking at a press conference here today, Selangor Mentri Besar Amirudin Shari (pix) said the achievement was mainly contributed by the 400.7% surge in foreign direct investment at RM10.84 billion last year against RM2.16 billion in the previous year.
He said invest-ment by domestic investors also showed a significant increase of 136% over the previous year. In 2018, a total of RM8.11 billion contributed by domestic investors against RM3.43 billion in 2017.
However for 2019, Amirudin said the state only aims to secure RM10 billion of approved investment in the manufacturing sector due to less favorable external environment.
In terms of investment by foreign investors, he said investment from China was the highest in terms of value (RM3.93 billion) in 2018 with investment in basic metal products (such as hot and cold rolled coils, paper (such as wet pulp board, corrugated box, kraft liner board) and other sectors.
Meanwhile, Japan saw the approval of 27 projects amounting to RM435.6 million in the areas of semiconductor, factory automation parts, food industry, light-emitting diode (LED) products as well as automotive.
The highest contribution for the approved manufacturing projects by industry was basic metal products (RM6.89 billion), followed by paper, printing and publishing (RM5.1 billion), rubber products (RM1.3 billion), food manufacturing (RM835 million) and plastic products (RM698 million).
According to the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) 2018 statistics, a total of 241 manufacturing projects were approved in Selangor last year, the highest in the country compared with 202 projects in 2017.
In addition, Amirudin said the state also recorded the highest investment in the country for services sector at RM5.78 billion last year versus RM4.5 billion in 2017.
The investment in the services sector was mainly in oil and gas services, renewable energy, private healthcare, research and development activities and logistics.
“The achievement of the performance also demonstrates the confidence of the international and local business community on the transparency and efficiency of the state government as well as the effectiveness of the efforts that have been and will be implemented by the state government,” he added.
