Malaysia expects to attract the same amount of foreign direct investments (FDIs) as last year despite the challenging economic environment.

Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, said last year, Malaysia recorded FDIs of RM39 billion. He said Malaysia's highly-diversified economy, strong manufacturing foundation, developed infrastructure and connectivity, proactive government policies and multilingual workforce were among the reasons investors continued to view Malaysia as their profit centre. "I believe we can emulate what we had achieved last year in terms of FDIs and the majority of them will be coming from the services and manufacturing sectors," he told reporters after chairing the dialogue session with 14 Penang-based companies. 

He said year-on-year, FDIs increased to RM12.8 billion in the first quarter of 2016 from RM10 billion in the corresponding period of 2015. Mustapa said Malaysia continued to be a preferred location for investments as reflected by the performance of our approved investments in the manufacturing, services and primary sectors in the first quarter of 2016 which recorded a total of 1,271 projects with investments of RM37.3 billion.

Source : XINHUA