KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 19 (Bernama) — The Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz reiterated that the investment figures approved by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) refer specifically to the compilation of proposed investments that have been approved.
He explained that this only covers the manufacturing and services sectors that fall under MIDA’s jurisdiction. These direct investments include both domestic and foreign investments.
“The investment calculation refers to the total project costs such as land, factories, and machinery,” he clarified in a post on Instagram today, where he reuploaded an earlier explanation he made on the matter last year.
Tengku Zafrul noted that this is different from the net foreign direct investment (net FDI) figures published by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM), which only calculate actual inflows and outflows of foreign investments.
“They (DoSM) don’t count domestic investments,” he said.
In the video, Tengku Zafrul said that DoSM’s method for calculating foreign investment is based on financial transactions, including equity investments such as shares, debt, dividends, and reinvested earnings.
“For example, if a foreign company buys shares and takes over a local company, MIDA does not count that as FDI because no new project is involved.
“But for DoSM, that is counted as FDI. So, what MIDA calls approved investments and what DoSM calls net FDI are two different measurements and cannot be directly compared,” he said.
Tengku Zafrul also said that the status of approved investments announced by MIDA is followed up periodically with reports on how much of that investment has been implemented or completed.
“Some ask, ‘Where are these investments? We don’t see them’. Well, factories aren’t necessarily built right next to our homes, right? So, of course, we don’t see them.
“But if we go and look at industrial areas — for example, in Penang, Malaysia’s semiconductor hub — God willing, we can see the buildings and many new factories,” he said.
— BERNAMA
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