Approved factory investments in Malaysia dropped by 50% in 2009

 

Not suprise to me as our beloved government busy politicking in 2009 .......Power grabs in Perak in 2009 , pendatang issues, Allah issues, TEO Beng Hock issues all are still fresh in our mind .... economy issues ? who cares.....


Not enough  with the above, we are supplied with SODOMEE first thing in the morning ....

Do not believe ? just open the news paper every morning....... 

I can only say GOD bless you Malaysia....

MALAYSIA’S approved factory investment declined in 2009 as companies delayed projects amid a global economic slump.

Approved investments dropped by about half to RM32.6 billion last year, Malaysia’s International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed said in Kuala Lumpur today. That compares with RM62.8 billion in 2008. Foreign investment more than halved.

“The global economic environment in 2009 was very challenging as a result of the financial crisis which commenced in the U.S. in 2008,” Mustapa said. “Malaysia’s economy also succumbed to these unfavorable global developments.”

Prime Minister Najib Razak eased investment rules last year to attract funds amid the Southeast Asian nation’s first recession in a decade. The country still faces competition for investments from the rest of the region even after liberalizing some services industries, including banking and insurance, Mustapa said in August.
Malaysia approved RM36.3 billion of services investment last year, of which RM32.95 billion was from domestic sources, Mustapa said. Investments in services were led by the transport and energy industries, he said.

In neighbouring Singapore, the government expects to attract fixed-asset investments of between S$10 billion ($7 billion) and S$12 billion in 2010, from S$11.8 billion last year.

Economy Shrank

Malaysia’s economy probably shrank 3 per cent last year, Mustapa said today. The government is confident of 5 per cent growth in gross domestic product this year, Second Finance Minister Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah said last week. That’s higher than its official growth forecast of 2 per cent to 3 per cent.

The nation’s private-sector investment is weak for an investment-grade country and there is little upward pressure on its credit rating because of the “lack of dynamism,” Thomas Byrne, senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service in Singapore, said in a Jan. 27 conference call.

The government’s attempts to increase investment may be hurt by a spate of inter-faith disputes in the country of 28 million people.

Acts of violence were reported against at least 11 Christian institutions, one Sikh temple and two Muslim prayer rooms last month following a High Court judge’s decision to allow a Catholic newspaper to refer to God as “Allah” in its Malay-language section.

Foreign Investment

Foreign companies accounted for RM22.1 billion of the approved investments in manufacturing last year, Mustapa said. That compares with the record RM46.1 billion in 2008. Of the 2009 foreign investment, RM16.4 billion was for new investments, and the rest for expansion and diversification, the minister said.

Domestic manufacturing investments approved totaled RM10.5 billion in 2009, Mustapa said. That compares with the RM16.7 billion reported earlier for the previous year.

Japan was the biggest investor in Malaysia’s manufacturing industry last year, accounting for RM5.6 billion, followed by Hong Kong, the U.S. and Singapore, Mustapa said. Manufacturing of chemicals and chemical products lured the most investment. - Bloomberg