Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has slammed the state BN for being “ignorant and pretentious” in its criticism over falling investor confidence in the state.

In fact, Lim said, total investments in Penang under Pakatan Rakyat is RM40.1 billion, close to double of the RM21.1 billion obtained by the state when BN was in power in the same period before.

Lim (left) said that this is because state BN chief Teng Chang Yeow should be aware that Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings had just agreed to invest RM11.3 billion in the state.

Temasek had signed a joint venture agreement to develop a high technology industrial park for the manufacturing and services sector, he said.

"BN should drop all pretence and concede that Pakatan Rakyat performed much better during our six years in power with RM40, 049 million in investments as compared to BN's previous six years of RM21, 095 million," Lim said at a press conference today.

Lim was referring to Teng's remark that Lim used outdated investment figures to claim that Penang is top in investments from 2010 to Aug 2013.

Teng (right) said the latest foreign direct investment figures up to Dec 2013 by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority show that Penang's investment had fallen sharply by 82 percent.

However, Lim dismissed Teng's tactics of “politicising investment figures” as the figures the CM used were quoted from a written reply to Parliament by Finance Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

"Penang has received little to no cooperation from the federal government agencies…

"There are even no replies to our formal letters on many issues, (and) for this reason, we are forced to rely on parliamentary questions.

"Unfortunately, even parliamentary questions sometimes elicit very little information," he stressed.

‘Is Teng going to help Penang or not?’

As such, Lim said Penang's achievement as Malaysia’s top investment location is more remarkable as the state operating practically on its own.

He warned that the challenges for Penang will only increase with Kedah now "openly using its political connections" with Putrajaya to undermine the state's competitiveness.

"Penang is unafraid of competing with another new international airport in Kulim, but it must be on a level playing field with an additional runway, integrated air cargo facility and maintenance, repair and overhaul hub," he said.

"The question is whether Teng and Penang Umno will support Penang International Airport upgrade expansion proposals with deeds rather than empty words to compete fairly with the proposed airport in Kulim.”