The Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) said today the total investments approved were mainly in petroleum products including petrochemicals (RM15 billion), basic metal products (RM14.5 billion), electrical and electronics (RM7.7 billion), machinery and equipment (RM5.8 billion), and chemicals and chemical products (RM4.5 billion).
These investments, along with food manufacturing (RM3 billion), transport equipment (RM3 billion) as well as scientific and measuring equipment (RM2.1 billion), made up 85% of total approved investments for the sector.
“Compared with the corresponding period last year, domestic direct investment in the manufacturing sector saw a leap of 45.5% to RM25.9 billion during this period while the value of approved foreign direct investments (FDI) increased by 3.2% to RM39.4 billion,” Mida said.
The states that recorded the highest total approved investments in the manufacturing sector are Sarawak, Sabah, Penang, Selangor, and Johor, which collectively contributed RM51.3 billion.
The leading sources of foreign investment for the nine-month period were China, Singapore, Switzerland, the US, the Netherlands, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea.
These eight countries jointly accounted for 91.4% or RM36 billion of the total FDI approved in the manufacturing sector.
Mida said it had also been attracting quality investments in capital-intensive, high-value-added and high technology projects. This was reflected in the increase of capital investment per employee ratio to RM1.28 million in the first nine months of the year from RM1.04 million during the same period last year.
The agency also said the projects approved would generate 51,172 jobs for the country, which included 1,040 electrical and electronics engineers, 963 mechanical engineers and 331 chemical engineers.
“In addition, the approved manufacturing projects will also require about 5,499 skilled craftsmen such as plant maintenance supervisors, tools and die makers, machinists, IT personnel, quality controllers, electricians and welders,” it said.