Govt urged to relaunch MM2H program to stimulate economic growth

KOTA KINABALU: The Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) has urged the government to relaunch the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme to attract more foreign talents and investors to live and invest in Malaysia.

Its president, Tan Sri T.C Goh, said this is necessary to accelerate the much-needed economic recovery, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic in the country steadily improving, and the economic sector moving towards recovery phase.

Goh made the call when responding to the announcement of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture on June 29 that the MM2H Centre which comes under its purview would cease its operations starting yesterday.

It also announced that the MM2H Immigration Unit will be transferred to the Immigration Department of Malaysia headquarters starting July 6. Due to the closure of the centre, all new submissions will not be accepted until further notice.

Therefore, any immigration related issues may be pursued directly with the Immigration Department of Malaysia located at No. 15, Level 1 & 5 (Podium),

Persiaran Perdanan, Presint Putrajaya.

Goh noted that the announcement has created confusions and caused grave concerns among those who are involved in promoting and handling MM2H programme; they feared that it may adversely impact on the said programme which has been significant towards attracting foreign investors and revenues for the country, over the years.

He said upon receiving feedback from concerned MM2H promoters, a check conducted by Huazong later confirmed that the MM2H Centre had indeed ceased its operations, as scheduled.

When contacted for verification, a spokesperson of the centre was unable to provide a specific answer on whether the centre is being temporarily suspended or decommissioned for good.

The spokesperson also acknowledged that with the latest move, several thousand applications for the MM2H programme will be temporary put aside.

Goh said Huazong hopes the government could reactivate the MM2H programme, besides clarifying the doubts 2, and confusions over the announcement of its closure.

“With the government starting to reopen the country to allow in foreign visitors, with conditions and Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), it should relaunch the MM2H programme as part of the economic recovery initiatives.

“This is because those foreigners who signed up for the MM2H programme are largely the ‘silver hair group’ and highly-paid professionals with sound financial and economic standing. Besides, the government can actually tap into their financial resources and expertise to attract more foreign investments, foreign talents, and to boost our tourism industry,” he said.

He contended that instead of bringing in more migrant workers, the government should ramp up efforts to attract more foreign talents and investors through the MM2H programme, like what is being done by many other countries like Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan.

While acknowledging that migrant workers are still being needed in certain sectors of the economy, Goh nonetheless underscored that their presence in the country should be better regulated.

He especially proposed the government to conduct fresh rounds of foreign workers regularization program, to round up and deport all illegal foreign workers back to their country of origin. He said this would help to prevent outflow of huge amount of foreign exchange, which otherwise would impede and frustrate the government’s effort to stabilize Ringgit and to accelerate economic recovery.

“Huazong believes the revival and ramping up of the MM2H programme could significantly help to bring in more foreign revenues and stabilize our currency,” he added.

To better illustrate his point, he cited a previous news report in June 2019 quoting MM2H Programme Agents Association president Lim Kok Sai, that the MM2H scheme has raked in RM40.6 billion in total since its introduction in 2002 until 2018, from 21,841 approvals.

In 2018, there were 6,276 applications, but only 3,339 were approved, and this group contributed RM2.8 billion to Malaysia’s revenue. In 2018 alone, more than RM600 million came from 500 houses sold to these successful applicants, Lim was reported as saying in The Malaysian Insight.

Of that, property purchase makes up the highest amount at RM5.5 billion, with apartments, villas and townhouses topping the list.

The foreign retirees’ preferred location is Kuala Lumpur, followed by Johor, Selangor, Penang and Malacca. The highest number were for Chinese nationals at 1,495 successful applications, followed by South Koreans at 449 and Japanese at 223. Others were from Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Britain, the US, Taiwan, India and Australia.

Besides property, the country also earns revenue from the visa holders’ bank deposits, medical treatment, tourism and other purchases like cars and furniture.

“On top of that, their spending also indirectly creates jobs in the country,” Goh pointed out.

While noting that statistics showed that a high percentage of the MM2H scheme participants were Chinese nationals, he hoped that no one would deem fit to politicize it or turn it into a racial issue, as it may inevitably stunt the development and growth of our nation.