KUALA LUMPUR:  The Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry (MITI) said only 1.4 per cent, or  33 projects, of 2,386 manufacturing projects approved between 2021 and 2023 did not take off, due to changes in the companies' strategies.

Its Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said 2,386 manufacturing projects received the greenlight from the National Committee on Investments in the three years.

He said to-date, a total of 1,802 or 75.5 per cent of the approved  projects have been implemented.

Of these, 1,597 projects are in the inception stage and 205 under construction or the installation phase.

Another 551 or 23.1 per cent of the projects are in the planning stage, and 33 or 1.4 per cent were not implemented due to the companies' change of strategy.  

The ministry approved RM60.5 billion worth of digital investments in 2023 alone.

From 2021-2023, the amount approved totalled RM144.7 billion, with data centres taking up a lion's share of the total at RM114.7 billion. 

"Although arguably data centres contribute to a small number of jobs, what's important is they enable the digital economy," Tengku Zafrultold a press conference in conjunction with the ministry's first quarter report card announcement. 

By end-2022 the size of Malaysia's digital economy grew to RM205 billion or 14 per cent of Malaysia's gross domestic product (GDP) with mainly e-commerce and fintech charting growth. 

"Our target is to expand the digital economy contribution to 22.6 per cent of Malaysia's GDP by 2025 with efforts to improve Malaysia's digital transformation to enhance competitiveness. 

"A robust data centre ecosystem will support this growth sustainably. When you bring data centres into the country, there will be spillover effects in other companies within the ecosystem that comes in with the data centres," he added. 

On the approved investments for the first quarter of 2024, Tengku Zafrul said the figure will be announced early-June.

Commenting on the electric vehicle (EV) sector, Tengku Zafrul said 2,214 charging stations were installed as at March 20. 1,741 are AC chargers while the remaining 473 are DC chargers. 

The ministry maintained its target of achieving 10,000 charging stations by end-2025. 

Meanwhile, on the electronic and electrical sector upcycle, the minister said Malaysia is poised to benefit from the rising demand. 

"Based on our discussion we had with companies, our export will go up as they build up capacity following the demand from various industries. 

"If we look at the investments made globally, this upcycle will benefit Malaysia," he said. 

Tengku Zafrul also added that the ministry hopes to conclude a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United Arabs Emirate by June. 

He said it is the first  FTA that Malaysia will have with the Middle East and it is a comprehensive economic partnership agreement. 

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https://www.nst.com.my/business/economy/2024/04/1042159/miti-only-14pc-manufacturing-projects-approved-between-2021-and