KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will be able to sustain its foreign direct investment (FDI) growth next year, Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) chairman Tan Sri Dr Sulaiman Mahbob said yesterday.
“Based on this year as the recovery year for FDI with convincing economy and policies set by the government, we hope to sustain the growth for the next year,” he told reporters after the Asian Institute of Finance’s Distinguished Speaker Series here.
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed recently said FDIs in Malaysia leaped to RM17.1 billion for the period from January to September 2010 compared with just RM5 billion recorded for the whole of last year.
He had said the amount was a clear reflection of increase in confidence in the Malaysian economy.
Earlier in his presentation, Sulaiman said the financial sector, as a service industry, had a critical role in assisting the nation to achieve high-income economy.
He said areas of priority included capital market development, Islamic finance, facilitating innovation, assisting the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and making available project financing facilities.
He also stressed that SMEs’ share of financing from banks had risen from 27 per cent at the end of 1998 to 40 per cent in March 2010.
Moving forward, he said, the government would set up a working capital guarantee sch-eme (WCGS) for SMEs.
WCGS is meant to assist viable legal Malaysian-owned companies in all economic sectors with shareholder equity below RM20 million gaining access to financing to sustain their business operations under the current challenging economic environment. — Bernama