InvestKL Achieves Milestone! Successfully Attracts 100 MNCs to Greater Kuala Lumpur
MITI Agency reaches its target of 100 MNCs to set up Regional Services Hubs in Greater Kuala Lumpur ahead of year end.
Kuala Lumpur, 22 October 2020: InvestKL, the investment promotion agency tasked to attract Fortune 500 and Forbes 200 global multinational companies (MNCs) has achieved its KPI mandate of attracting and facilitating 100 MNCs to set up their Regional Services Hubs in Greater Kuala Lumpur (Greater KL). These MNCs have contributed an investment amount of RM 15.2 billion, as well as the creation of 13,962 regional high skilled jobs.
Since its inception in 2011, InvestKL is recognised as the agency with an excellent track record of consistently achieving its KPI of attracting 10 MNCs yearly. As a trusted partner for investors, InvestKL has been acknowledged by Site Selection as the ‘Top Investment Promotion Agency (IPA)’, an award received for three years in 2015, 2017 and 2019 respectively.
InvestKL’s Chief Executive Officer, Muhammad Azmi Zulkifli said, “This achievement is a historic milestone. Despite the challenging year, the team has gone beyond and remained steadfast in achieving our target of attracting 100 MNCs to Greater KL. These 100 MNCs operating their regional hubs are creating high-impact and high-value activities right here in Greater KL. We were very focused on achieving the target, kept our facilitation with MNCs moving and aggressively promoted Greater KL’s compelling propositions to attract more global MNCs looking to establish a footprint within ASEAN and Asia Pacific. What’s next? We’re on the move for the next 100, this time targeting MNCs in the digital, technology and sustainable space to complement Malaysia’s path towards being Industry 4.0 ready.”
InvestKL has attracted some of the world’s largest MNCs to locate its hubs such as US-based companies Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield company headquartered in Houston and Cargill, the largest privately-owned MNCs and the 3rd largest trader worldwide. In the European region, InvestKL has attracted Linde, the largest industrial gas and engineering company and AstraZeneca, the world’s leading pharmaceutical company. Asian MNCs too have chosen Greater KL including CRRC (China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation) the world’s largest rolling stock company in the world and Kadokawa, Japan’s leading creative content aggregator, publisher and distributor, has positioned Greater KL as its creative hub.
Other prominent MNCs facilitated by InvestKL over the years include Honeywell, AECOM, Zurich, International SOS, Veolia, McDermott, CREC, Toshiba, Oleon and Air Liquide. Overall, these 100 global MNCs are represented from regions such as Americas comprising 24%, Europe at 49%, Asia at 24%, and others at 3%.
Benefits to the Country, People and Local Ecosystem
Throughout the ten years from 2011 – 2020, RM 10.43 billion or (69%) of the RM 15.2 billion investments have been realised. In addition, 9,546 or (68%) of the 13,962 high-skilled regional jobs are already on the payroll. Of these (82%) employed are Malaysians with an average annual income of RM 108,000. These investments contribute growth value for the country and propel the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030, while presenting a positive ripple effect to the ecosystem, benefiting multiple industries, encouraging collaborations with local players, and academia, among others.
“Apart from fostering sustainable high skilled jobs for Malaysians, the professional opportunities offered by the MNCs are very transformative and empowering, allowing Malaysians to learn from the best and adopting global best practices. We have also facilitated various SME collaborations with our MNCs allowing both parties to reap the benefits and move up the value chain,” said Azmi.
“Our local talent has benefited tremendously from the knowledge exchange and wealth of opportunities offered to them by our multinational companies. It is a win-win situation for companies who are looking to expand into the Asia region as Malaysia boasts a diverse multilingual and multicultural workforce, with strong ties to different languages and cultures worldwide, making our talent well-rounded for any global challenges and highly adaptable,” he added.
Strengthening Greater KL’s Competitiveness & The Way Forward
Many MNCs have chosen Greater KL as a hub due to the Malaysian government’s business-friendly policies, world-class infrastructure, vibrant ecosystem coupled with its strategic location and access to fast-growing markets within the Asia Pacific.
Malaysia was ranked the 2nd most competitive market with ASEAN by the World Economic Forum, Global Competitiveness Report 2019. This was also echoed by World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2020 report, ranking Malaysia 12th place. Greater KL is also known for its future-ready graduates and their potential to serve investors in various industries, making it an attractive proposition. According to the 2019 IMD World Talent Ranking, Malaysia clinched the 6th position among Asia Pacific countries on how they develop, attract and retain highly skilled professionals.
Significantly, Malaysia and Greater KL have received its recognition as a strategic investment location with a potential to grow, attracting more high value, high impact regional operations.
Azmi is confident, “We will surpass our target of 100 MNCs by the end of 2020, that’s for sure. Now that we have achieved 100 MNCs, the team is geared up to attract the next 100. We are already in conversations with global MNCs and have a promising pipeline of leads to continue our work as a top investment promotion agency. We will protect and retain the current investments and identify expansion opportunities, and more high-value regional activities while we optimise Greater KL’s strong fundamentals and business-friendly approach to attract new investments. There is healthy interest from our targeted sectors in the high tech, high impact and digital type of companies, and this is an opportunity we will pursue aggressively to shift decisions towards Greater KL. We are excited to embark on the next phase of our journey as we strengthen Greater KL’s investment portfolio and make it the undisputed investment location in ASEAN.”
https://www.investkl.gov.my/
