Survey shows M’sia best place to invest this year

This news article is written and published by The Star Online on 14 March 2017 (Tuesday). The original article can be found on this link.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has been ranked as the best place to invest in this year in an international survey of 80 countries. It is ahead of Singapore, which is at No.2, followed by Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland and India.

The survey noted that Malaysia was “one of the top recipients of foreign direct investment, and its pro-business government offers a wide range of incentives to investors”.

It was undertaken by BAV Consulting, which is a global strategic brand consultancy, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. It was done in consultation with the US News & World Report, which stated on its website that the survey was done “to capture how countries are perceived on a global scale”.

The ranking is based on scores from 6,000 business decision makers compiled based on attributes such as corruption, dynamic, economically stable, entrepreneurial, favourable tax environment, innovative, skilled labour force and technological expertise.

Economist Dr Yeah Kim Leng said the ranking suggested that investor confidence and sentiments here were positive despite recent negative developments in the country. “This perhaps indicates that Malaysia’s growth and investment prospects remain intact. It gives Malaysia a lift from a foreign investor’s perspective,” said Dr Yeah who is with the Sunway University Business School.

Dr Yeah said Malaysia’s ability to sustain a growth momentum of 4.2% last year could have been a contributing factor to Malaysia’s ranking. “It is among the top performing economies among the middle-income countries. That itself is more than double the growth of developed economies including Singapore,” he said, adding that prospects for the Asean region remained positive.

InvestKL CEO Datuk Zainal Amanshah said that this was a good testimony of the Government’s hard work. “It’s great to be recognised and we have actual results to prove it. Today, Kuala Lumpur is home to global MNCs with high value and high skilled investments. However, we know that it’s competitive and will continue to work with our key stakeholders to bring out the best of what Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia can offer to investors,” he said.