‘Malaysian contractors need better access to funding’

The Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), in promoting Malaysian engineering internationally, is hoping for better access to financing for Malaysian contractors bidding for overseas jobs.

CIDB said internationalisation will drive Malaysian construction players to gain prominence as global players on the international platform as well as significantly elevate their position on the domestic front.

One of the initiatives under the Construction Industry Transformation Programme’s four strategic thrusts (namely Quality, Safety and Professionalism, Environmental Sustainability, Productivity and Internationalisation) is to strengthen access to financing for Malaysian champions going abroad.

A study was conducted to identify issues and challenges faced by local players in going abroad.

CIDB said it was 85 per cent into completion of the study, findings which had led to the recommendation of five financing products. Out of five, three are new financing products, while the remaining two are enhanced financing products.

“With these achievements, we are confident that we can achieve our goal of Malaysian construction industry players gaining prominence as leaders in the international platform, as well as significantly elevate their position on the domestic front.”

Currently, there are 79 projects worth RM2.7 billion that had been won by Malaysian companies in developing countries including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Laos.

This has exceeded CIDB’s initial key performance indicator of RM2.0 billion.

The board said it needed to be targeting high potential export markets for the country’s first class engineering services.

It will do so by collaborating with Malaysia External Trade Development Corp under the national export strategy led by the National Export Council.

They will raise the number of factfinding missions in order to strengthen business networking and engagements.

CIDB noted that a main challenge Malaysian contractors face are sparse market intelligence and lack of market access to stand a good chance at winning overseas projects.

"We want to raise the number of fact-finding missions to strengthen business networking and engagements," said CIDB.

Through internationalisation initiatives, the industry development board looks forward to raising the profile of the Malaysian construction industry in the global market.