Johari ridicules Azmin's 'selective' FDI claims
UMNO AGM | Former second finance minister Johari Abdul Ghani lambasted International Trade and Industry Minister Azmin Ali's claims that the government was being selective on foreign direct investment (FDI) as "nonsense".
He said while Azmin spoke about selective investments, it was not as if multinational corporations (MNCs) such as Tesla, Samsung, Amazon and Apple were investing in Malaysia...
UMNO AGM | Former second finance minister Johari Abdul Ghani lambasted International Trade and Industry Minister Azmin Ali's claims that the government was being selective on foreign direct investment (FDI) as "nonsense".
He said while Azmin spoke about selective investments, it was not as if multinational corporations (MNCs) such as Tesla, Samsung, Amazon and Apple were investing in Malaysia.
Johari (photo, above), who is also an Umno supreme council member, said this while debating party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's policy speech at the Umno general assembly today.
"What I cannot stand is that (he) sits in his office without engaging with (the MNCs) that are shutting down (their operations or factories) in Malaysia, including IBM and Sony.
"There must be reasons for these companies to shut down their operations, but nobody engaged them for discussions," he said.
Azmin had denied that Malaysia was losing out on foreign investments from big MNCs to other countries in the region.
"We are now more selective in terms of investments coming into our country. We no longer want labour-intensive industries coming to Malaysia because we do not want to be over-dependent on foreign workers," he was quoted by The Edge.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in a January report said FDI into Malaysia fell 68 percent last year, the worst rate in Southeast Asia.
While noting the country was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, which could see a decline of foreign investments in Malaysia, Johari argued the pandemic did not stop foreign investments into Indonesia.
"The Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia is worse than Malaysia, but it recorded US$18 billion worth of foreign investments in 2020, while Malaysia's foreign investment reduced to US$2.5 billion in 2020.
"In 2017, Indonesia's foreign investment only stood at US$4.5 billion," he said.
Malaysia had recorded a total of US$13.5 billion foreign investment under BN's administration in 2017, said Johari.
The investors prefer to invest in countries with a high level of democracy, he said.
As such, Johari urged Umno ministers to push for the cabinet to end the national emergency that also affected the inflow of foreign investments.
"There are nine ministers and eight deputy ministers from Umno. There is no need for them to resign, but they have to pressure the government to end the emergency. They have to push for it," he said.
Johari said this as Umno leaders, including party veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, had urged the Umno ministers to quit.
Reporting by Kow Gah Chie, Haspaizi Zain, Ng Xiang Yi, Ramieza Wahid and Low Choon Chyuan
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