Image credit: NewCities
JOHOR BARU: Johor is in a good position to attract more multinational corporations (MNCs) based in China to relocate their operations to Iskandar Malaysia.
Johor South SME advisor Teh Kee Sin said the state government and Iskandar Regional Development Authority (Irda) must hasten efforts to attract them.
He said the on-going trade war between China and the United States offered a good opportunity for countries in the region, including Malaysia, to attract the MNCs.
“Johor must act fast to get China-based MNCs to come here,’’ said Teh.
He said neighbouring countries were also aggressively courting them.
Teh said priority should be given to new technology industries such as financial technology (fintech), telecommunications, information technology (IT), digital economy and e-commerce.
“We saw how well these industries functioned during the global Covid-19 pandemic and movement control order (MCO),’’ he added.
Teh said the old way of doing business was no longer enough, especially during the MCO.
He said stabilising the government, simplifying the business process and procedures and an efficient delivery system are important to attract more foreign direct investments (FDIs).
Teh said Johor Baru’s close proximity to Singapore was an added advantage in attracting the MNCs from China and all over the world to invest in Iskandar Malaysia.
“By investing here, they have the best of both worlds, with Singapore as an international trade and financial centre and competitive cost in Malaysia,’’ he added.
Irda chief executive officer Datuk Ismail Ibrahim said while the manufacturing sector was still relevant to Iskandar Malaysia, it has to move up the value chain.
He said manufacturers involved in labour intensive activities should look at other countries that have a large pool of workers.
He said Malaysia’s manufacturing sector could no longer remain labour intensive.
Ismail said since 2006 until Dec 31, 2019, the manufacturing sector recorded the highest investment at RM75.10bil, followed by logistics (RM11.06bil), tourism (RM8.59bil), healthcare (RM4.41bil), finance (RM3.45bil), education and creative at RM3.29bil and RM1.45bil respectively.
Others were mixed development at RM101.53bil, residential properties (RM54.14bil), industrial properties (RM19.84bil), government spending on infrastructure (RM15.53bil), utilities (RM12.97bil) and emerging technologies at RM2.74bil.
For the period under review, China, Singapore, the US, Japan and the Netherlands were the top five countries with the highest investments in Iskandar Malaysia.
“We work closely with the Federal and Johor governments to attract investments that can create economic spillover for Iskandar Malaysia,’’ he said.
Ismail said it also has good ties with the SMEs in Johor, including having business matching between them and major local and foreign investors.
He said the main challenge in Iskandar Malaysia was to work with an economic situation that was interchangeable and to keep up with the changes in the market trend worldwide in various sectors.
Ismail said Irda has taken several steps to mitigate possible setbacks by diversifying the economic portfolios and having a good mix to reduce too much dependency on one economic segment post Covid-19.
“We are confident of capturing the interest of investors’ post-Covid-19 and achieve the RM383bil investment target by 2025,’’ he said.
Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Hasni Muhammad said the state government was planning to introduce Johor Investment Master Plan 2030, to study current trends of the world economy and assess its impact on the state.
He said the study would look into the economic trends over the past 10 years and also take into account current plans and initiatives in place.
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/metro/metro-news/2020/10/01/act-fast-to-attract-mncs-johor-urged