TAIPING:
Malaysia has to think outside the box to attract foreign investment in light of
the sluggish global economy this year, said Deputy International Trade And Industry
Minister Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir.
“We
were less selective in the past when it came to who could invest, so even the
labour-intensive industries were approved.
“But
the focus now is on high-tech, high-yielding and value-added investment,” he
said at the launch of DreamEDGE Sdn. Bhd’s digital engineering design centre in
Taiping, Perak. DreamEDGE set up the centre as an engineering services
outsourcing facility to support clients in the automotive, aerospace, maritime
and other manufacturing-related industries.
Mukhriz
said there was huge potential in the engineering services sector, which is
estimated to be worth US$1 trillion (RM3 trillion) by 2020. Malaysia only had a
RM20mil share of the market currently, he added.
“It’s
an extremely competitive space. I can’t say how much market share we’ll have by
2020, but we only have a meagre RM20mil currently, which is a drop in the
ocean,” he said.
DreamEDGE’s
RM51.8mil centre is expected to create 500 highly-skilled design engineers
based in Taiping over the next five years.
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