KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (Mida) is encouraging German companies to enter the machinery and equipment, and renewable energy sectors in Malaysia.“We encourage more German machinery and equipment companies to invest in Malaysia as a centre of designing and innovation in the oil and gas industry,” said Mida director-general and chief executive officer Datuk Jalilah Baba.
“The oil and gas industry is quite advanced here and there are many openings,” she told Bernama after officiating the Malaysian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s German Centre here yesterday.
In addition, the renewable energy sector is another important platform that has room for investment as Malaysia is accelerating efforts and initiatives in this sector, she said.
Germany recorded an investment of RM425 million through 14 projects in Malaysia in the manufacturing industry last year, and to date there are 324 projects from Germany, amounting to RM17.3 billion, operating locally.
This made Germany the fourth largest investor of companies with operations in Malaysia, Jalilah said.
“Mida is looking into getting more services companies to come on board, especially in the specialised healthcare sector and tourism as the nation is still lacking in these areas,” she said.
“Besides that, the country also needs large and spacious designated areas or convention centres and exhibition centres. This is to cater to the many international and local events held here as many business deals take place during the events,” she added.
These sectors, according to her, needed to be developed to address the country’s growing needs.
On the manufacturing industry, Jalilah said Mida wanted to house high value-added companies in research, innovation and designing, and the medical devices sector as Malaysia still did not have many of them here.
Touching on domestic investment, she said local players needed to upgrade their capabilities to be total solution providers to do outsourcing.
“In this aspect, Mida encourages more foreign companies to set up base here and collaborate with Malaysian companies and Germany has the expertise,” Jalilah said. Adopting this approach will decrease cash outflow and increase tourist presence locally, she said. — Bernama