In a statement, minister in the prime minister’s department Abdul Rahman Dahlan responded to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s claims about the sale of land to foreigners.
Recently, Mahathir has voiced concern over the sale of land to Chinese developers in Johor’s Iskandar region and the upcoming projects which he claimed would see “millions” of mainland Chinese migrating here.
Mahathir has also claimed that the mass migration of Chinese nationals would have an impact on Malaysia’s political and economic landscape.
Rahman said although land was a state issue there were enough laws and regulations at state and federal level to provide checks and balances.
He also said it wasn’t true that Johor was only attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) through the sale of land to foreigners.
“Since 2012, Johor has displaced Selangor and Penang as the number one state in attracting manufacturing investments,” he said, adding this had contributed significantly to Johor’s economic development.
Rahman said Mahathir was still “stuck in the past” and was unable to accept that the economic requirements for Malaysia to progress are now different.
“FDI is not just about investment in the manufacturing industry. In order to move Malaysia to the next stage of our economic development of a developed high-income country, we need to develop the services sector,” he said, adding that in some countries, the services sector contributed up to 80% of the country’s employment and GDP.
“The Forest City project which Mahathir had repeatedly attacked using a racial bias is an example of such a FDI in the services sector.”
But Rahman said the government still valued the manufacturing sector, only that it wants high value-added manufacturers with a high degree of automation rather than low-cost manufacturing.
“We can keep reminiscing about the past of low-cost manufacturing, or we can move forward to progress as a nation. It is all Malaysians’ choice, not some individual’s choice,” he said, adding Malaysia could no longer compete based on low-cost manufacturing industries.