SHAH ALAM: While the global economy has been suffering from the Covid-19 outbreak, more investments are expected to pour into the country, particularly Selangor, as China, the epicentre of the disease, has been badly hit.
Selangor state executive council member and investment, industry and commerce and SMEs committee chairman, Datuk Teng Chang Kim said the state government has been approached by investors to explore the possibility of relocating some of the manufacturing facilities from China to Southeast Asia.
“The world is talking about how China could no longer be the world’s factory, as we can’t put all of our eggs in one basket,” he said at a press conference today after the soft launch of the Selangor International Business Summit 2020 (SIBS 2020), which will be held from Oct 14 to 17 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
He disclosed that a majority of the inquiries are from the electrical & electronics as well as the medical & pharmaceutical industry.
Teng expects to continue receiving a huge number of investment enquiries in the next six months as the fast-spreading virus has led to rising cases and deaths.
However, he stressed that all investments are required to comply with the existing rules, policy and standards.
Speaking of the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on Selangor, he said the state government could not afford to come up with a stimulus package to combat the disease, but is looking at improving the efficiency of its processes to help businesses cope with the impact.
“Currently, we are looking at how to make the existing procedures and processes easier for investors, especially for development order and land matter, including subdivision of land, application of land and land rezoning, to name a few.”
At this juncture, Teng said, Selangor is retaining its investment target of RM12 billion for the year.
“For now it is still too early to tell the impact from Covid-19, we still have to wait one or two months before deciding to review the target as we do not know how serious it will be.”
