|
JOHOR BAHARU, April 23 (Bernama) -- Malaysia continues to attract substantial investments in the manufacturing and services sector this year, signalling the confidence investors have in the country's business environment, International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz said Monday.
In the first three months of this year alone, 201 projects have been approved, involving capital investment of RM6.4 billion, she told the Southern Region Investment and Trade Dialogue and Seminar here on the manufacturing and services sector, themed, "Towards global competitiveness."
JOHOR BAHARU, April 23 (Bernama) -- Malaysia continues to attract substantial investments in the manufacturing and services sector this year, signalling the confidence investors have in the country's business environment, International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz said Monday.
In the first three months of this year alone, 201 projects have been approved, involving capital investment of RM6.4 billion, she told the Southern Region Investment and Trade Dialogue and Seminar here on the manufacturing and services sector, themed, "Towards global competitiveness."
Of the amount, RM2.4 billion is domestic investment and RM4 billion foreign.
In the same period, Rafidah said, her ministry had approved 57 investments in the manufacturing and services sector for the southern region - Johor, Melaka and Negeri Sembilan.
According to her, of the RM2.8 billion of the approved investments in the southern region, the bulk of the projects, with a value of RM1.8 billion, are foreign.
Johor tops the list, pulling in 42 of the 57 projects valued at RM2.5 billion, followed by Negeri Sembilan (eight projects worth RM255.2 million) and Melaka (seven projects worth RM20.1 million).
Rafidah said total approved investment in the services sector last year was RM54.9 billion, surpassing the target under the Third Industrial Master Plan (IMP3) of RM45.8 billion a year.
Domestic investments were RM48.6 billion while foreign investments amounted to RM6.3 billion.
Rafidah said the targeted investments for the manufacturing sector under IMP3 for 2006-2020 are RM412 billion (RM27.5 billion a year), and that for services, RM688 billion (RM45.9 billion a year).
She expects the manufacturing sector's contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to be 28.5 percent and that for services, 59.7 percent.
Last year Malaysia's exports of services amounted to RM77.6 billion, up by 5.2 percent over 2005, with tourism, transport and business services topping the list.
She cautioned that further services liberalisation initiatives under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and various free trade agreement (FTA) rules are expected to attract more foreign service providers and create a more competitive business environment.
Hence, she said, local service providers need to upgrade their services to compete with foreign competitors on home soil as well as abroad, and in this regard they need to ensure their integration into the international supply chain for services.
On small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Rafidah said as at February, 18,843 applications had been received by the SMI Development Corp for the various grant schemes, and 68.5 percent of them have been approved, with the applicants getting RM289.5 million.
The most approvals were for grants for technology development - 5,302 approvals amounting to RM174 million.
Approvals for grants for Southern Region states were 1,363 or 10.5 percent of the overall approvals, amounting to RM29 million or 10 percent of the approvals.
Meanwhile, there were 1,588 applications for soft loans, of which 991 (62.4 percent) were approved, amounting to RM500.9 million, said Rafidah.
She said the utilisation of funds offered by SMIDEC is relatively low for the Southern Region with the number of soft loans approved being 63 (6.3 percent) amounting to RM34.4 million.
Domestic companies in Southern Region’s three states, said Rafidah, are encouraged to make use of the funds.
Source : BERNAMA
|
