MIDA expects 2013 investments to surpass last years RM162 billion

Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) expects this year's investments to exceed last year's RM162 billion, says its Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Noharuddin Nordin, noting the double-digit increase in investments for the first-quarter of 2013, year-on-year.

Datuk Noharuddin, who was speaking at the "Designed in Asia" seminar organised by Intel at its plant in Bayan Lepas, Penang said reinvestments and new investments could be expected from multinational corporations (MNCs) supplying electronic components for the smart mobile device sector, which is seeing a growing market.

These investments are expected to be in the Klang Valley or Penang, where the manufacturing eco-system is already well established, he said, elaborating that the Federal Government was not just looking at drawing sizeable investments but also takes into account whether the investments would strengthen the eco-system supporting the manufacturing and services sectors.

Intel Malaysia Managing Director, Robin Martin and Intel Malaysia and Singapore Country Manager, Prakash Mallya were present at the event.

Prakash said Malaysian small and medium entreprises (SMEs) have strong skill sets in embedded systems and these SMEs rather than the foreign electronics MNCs based in Malaysia that would steer the embedded systems industry in the country in view of the highly customised nature of embedded systems.

He said in Malaysia there are about 30 companies in the electronic and electrical cluster with some form of design capability, while potentially 70 others have systems integration skill sets.

He estimated that there are currently 2,000 skilled embedded systems engineers in the country.

Source: MIDA and StarBiz