KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) is currently in talks with potential investors in alternative energy, oil and gas and advanced electronics.
Its chief executive officer, Datuk Noharuddin Nordin, said apart from that, some of these foreign companies are also interested in setting up their operational headquarters or regional service centres in Malaysia.
Speaking to Bernama in Bangkok recently, he said, these companies are not only looking at Malaysia but also considering other countries in the region.
“So, we are in the process of convincing them to decide on Malaysia and hopefully they can make the decision within this year,” he said.
Noharuddin said there has been an increasing trend whereby investor interests are gradually coming from markets that are not traditional markets to Malaysia, for example, if from Europe, traditionally investments would come from UK and Germany.
“Now we are seeing a lot of interests of companies coming from France and Spain. These are not our traditional sources of investments, which are something very encouraging,” he said.
He said the investments in the pipeline under negotiation are encouraging.
As of May this year, the investment promotion agency is actively negotiating potential investments worth RM 42.1 billion to be realised within this year.
Noharuddin also said that Mida’s specialised project missions, which are to target specific industries and services sectors, have been very successful.
“Back in the 1970s and 1980s, our strategy was often go to countries like Japan and the US.
“Now, we are no longer country-centric, we are more technology-centric, looking at the skills set and looking at the technology,” he said.
During the first quarter of this year, the country recorded RM49.3 billion of approved investments, an increase of 44 per cent as compared with RM34.3 billion in the same period of 2012, a substantial proof that Malaysia is still a location of choice for investments in the region. — Bernama