MALAYSIA remains competitive in attracting foreign investors post-Covid-19 based on its convincing performance this year compared to last year, Senior International Trade and Industry Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali said.

He, however, did not rule out the notion that there were foreign companies that had acted on their investments in the country following the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This is part of the rationalisation plan made by the foreign companies and not due to the country’s unconducive environment.

“Various factors are taken by foreign companies to choose their investment destinations, including low labour cost, the size of the domestic market and the available mineral resources,” he explained.

Azmin said this in reply to additional questions from Fong Kui Lin (Bukit Bintang-PH) in Parliament on the status of foreign investors who withdrew their investments in the country following the Covid-19 epidemic and whether they would return to invest in the country.

He said for the period from January to June 2021, Malaysia attracted investments totalling RM107.5 billion covering the manufacturing, services and key sectors. This amount shows a significant jump of 69.8% compared to RM63.3 billion for the same period in 2020.

Of this, foreign direct investment (FDI) contributed 58.1% or RM62.5 billion compared to RM19.8 billion for the same period in 2020.

In fact, he said the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2021 report also raised Malaysia’s global competitiveness by two places to 25th out of 64 economies, compared to 27th ranking in 2020.

In the meantime, Azmin also updated the implementation figures of the Public-Private Partnership Industry Immunisation Programme (Pikas) led by Miti aimed at increasing the vaccination rate of manufacturing sector workers.

As of September 25, 2021, he said a total of 1.06 million workers had been given an appointment under Pikas, of which 1,000,826 workers had been given the first dose while 899,626 workers had been fully immunised. –  Bernama, September 27, 2021.