KUCHING: Sarawak has managed to attract RM11.759 billion worth of capital investment from January to September this year compared with RM9.640 billion in the whole of last year.
Deputy Minister for International Trade and Industry Datuk Ahmad Maslan said with this performance Sarawak was still the second most attractive state in the nation for investment.
“Sarawak ranks second in term of the investment volume after Johor (third is Melaka) and this is very positive for the state,” he told the press during a visit to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) Sarawak regional office here yesterday.
He said of the total investments this year RM11.151 billion came from domestic investors while RM608.5 million were foreign direct investments.
“The investments are for 18 projects that have been approved in Sarawak in the first nine months of this year,” he said.
He said the domestic and foreign investments in the state in the same period had created a total of 1,470 job opportunities.
He said low electricity tariff and other incentives from the federal and state governments were among reasons why Sarawak was a favourite investment destination.
On the state’s trade performance, Ahmad said Sarawak recorded RM66.82 billion worth of exports in the first nine months of this year, an encouraging trend.
“Export value in the whole of last year was RM116.67 billion compared to RM108.4 billion in 2013. The state’s major exports in the past four years are natural gas, petroleum, palm oil, pepper, timber, logs as well as wood-based products such as plywood, composite board and charcoal,” he said, adding that Peninsular Malaysia remained as the state’s major export destination.
Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and Asean countries are other major export destinations and together with Peninsular Malaysia contribute to about 70 per cent in the last four years.
MITI Sarawak region director Griffith Jones Goba and officials from the ministry’s various agencies were also present during the visit yesterday.-Borneo Post
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