M'sia to woo foreign investors beyond US-China trade war

Malaysia will continue to be a business-friendly country and woo more foreign investors into the country even beyond the US-China trade war, Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Dr Ong Kian Ming said.

He said the government would ensure that Malaysia would continue to offer good investment environment and facilities, coupled with highskilled talent.

“I am sure that investments will continue to flow beyond the trade war,” he told reporters at the Selangor Investment Seminar here yesterday.

Economists are projecting that the ongoing trade war could come to an end next year by the 2020 US presidential election while some expect it could last for decades.

Ong said Selangor, for example, is among the beneficiaries of the trade war with a large number of companies from the US and China relocating or expanding their businesses here.

“There are a couple of largescale manufacturing companies that have come and applied for certain incentives and (plan) to set up their operations in Selangor,” he said.

This, he noted, helped balance between foreign and domestic direct investments in different manufacturing sectors in the state.

Last year, Selangor received RM113.0 billion worth of approved domestic investments in the manufacturing sector totalling RM113.0 billion, accounting for 52.1 per cent of the total investments, while the remaining 47.9 per cent or RM103.9 billion were made up of foreign investmment.

Meanwhile, for the first six months of 2019, Selangor attracted RM5.9 billion worth of total approved investment in the manufacturing sector, a 90.3 per cent increase from RM3.1 billion in the same period last year.

Of the amount, RM3.8 billion were made up of foreign investments, representing 64 per cent of Malaysia's total approved investments in the manufacturing sector for the January-June 2019 period.