Mana Dia FDI Arab Saudi, UAE ? FDI Lama Pula Lari Pi Singapura.

 Here is a picture of our MITI Minister  while he was leading that recent trade delegation to Saudi Arabia.

Here is the old news from The Star :

• trade delegation will leave for Saudi Arabia, UAE on April 26
• headed by MITI Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali 
• will meet top officials of both countries 
• hold one-to-one business meetings with prominent Saudi,  Emirati companies
• part of continuous effort by Miti to promote business with West Asia 
• following official visit of PM to Saudi, UAE in March
• In Saudi Arabia, Azmin will meet Commerce Minister, Mineral Resources Minister 
• In UAE, meeting Minister of Economy; Minister for Foreign Trade

My comments :

To the MITI Minister and the trade delegation, can you please answer this simple question. 

Can you name me just one world famous brand name that is produced by the Arabs that is sold in the world markets? 

Err..I dont mean humus, koos-koos, tahini or Lamb Kabsa ok. Or Mandey Rice. You can get those in any of the 'no work permit' Arab restaurants in Sri Kembangan. 

• But tell me - do the Arabs manufacture any products that we know of? 
• They cannot make LCD TVs, they cannot make shoes, they cannot make a car or a motorcycle. 
• There are no 'Made in Arabia' products sold anywhere that we know of. 
• There are no international Arab brand names. 

So what is the point of going to the Arabs looking for FDI? 

And they do not even have money anymore. Saudi Arabia has had to introduce the GST (at 15%) because their government has wasted so many billions of US Dollars. They are short of money.

The UAE (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, etc) are facing severe economic slowdowns and have hundreds of empty apartments and shopping complexes all shut down. They have no money. So what money can they invest in Malaysia?

So what is the point of going to Saudi Arabia or UAE looking for FDI? Buang masa saja lah. 

I say Tuan KSU MITI, dont you read the foreign newspapers? 

While they went off to Saudi and UAE looking for investments, here is news of more MNCs (Foreign Direct Investors or FDI also) opting to invest in Singapore. I received the following from reader Paul A. (thank you) :

Today I wanted to share with you how our sloppy  investment policy or people and/or agencies entrusted to bring in foreign investors to Malaysia missed a great opportunity.  

I hope you will share this with your readers and hopefully the powers that be take cognizance of this. 

They must be preoccupied with something else otherwise how did they miss Sanofi and BioNtech investment to Singapore?

Sanofi has a presence in Malaysia yet they preferred a new plant in Singapore. BioNtech is set to open a regional plant in Singapore. 

https://codeblue.galencentre.org/2021/04/16/sanofi-to-produce-vaccines-in-singapore-for-asia-supply/

• KL April 16 — Global biopharma company Sanofi investing RM2B in Singapore 
• factory fully operational by 1st quarter 2026 to manufacture vaccines 
• innovative vaccines to be produced on large scale for Asia

My comments :

Sanofi does have a presence in Malaysia. Indeed why do we waste time going to Saudi Arabia when we could have offered Sanofi, which is one of Europe's (French) largest pharmaceutical giants, incentives to invest that extra RM2 billion in Malaysia instead of going to Singapore? 

And here is one more lost opportunity for Malaysia. The German pharmaceutical giant Biontech, which created the first Corona Virus vaccine, is also setting up a vaccine plant in Singapore:

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3132943/coronavirus-biontech-chooses-singapore-its-asia

German drug maker BioNTech, whose coronavirus vaccine with Pfizer was the first to be approved in the United States and Europe for use last year, on Monday announced a new manufacturing facility in Singapore that would produce “several hundreds of millions” of mRNA-based vaccine doses a year.

My comments :

So another Foreign Investor has bypassed Malaysia and gone to Singapore. 

Both these investments by Sanofi and Biontech in Singapore will be worth billions of Ringgit and create high-income jobs. 

This is what we need in Malaysia - high technology foreign investors who can bring their technology here and create jobs for our unemployed university graduates, our unemployed school leavers etc. 

So please share with us what did the investment or trade delegation to Saudi Arabia and the UAE bring back?

The Arabs DO NOT HAVE TECHNOLOGY OR EVEN MONEY.  

The Minister came back and did not make any announcement about securing any investment from Saudi Arabia.  

Our MITI has to be more innovative and creative,  The MITI is full of  Pegawai Tinggi, Pegawai Tak Tinggi and so many other staff. 

Let me make a simple suggestion. Do a simple audit of the MNCs already operating here in Malaysia. Assign officers to study the Annual Reports of their parent companies in Europe, USA, Japan etc.  Study the Investment Analysts reports about where their business is headed over the next five years etc. Then make a direct approach to them, offer them really good incentives to plan their future business development here in Malaysia. 

Forget about those old fashioned cheap land, cheap labour type of incentives. They do not work anymore. 

For example labour cost in Singapore is much more expensive than here in Malaysia. Land in Singapore is much, much more expensive than land in our KLCC area. Still Sanofi and Biontech have decided to invest billions in Singapore. So just offering them cheap land and cheap labour will not work.

Singapore must have offered them other things. 

So what incentives can we offer these foreign FDIs to invest in Malaysia? The answer is so simple : GO AND ASK THEM. THEY WILL TELL YOU.

 

Then decide how much we can give, how much we can accommodate, etc. 

There are many, many ways to skin the cat.

We can offer to fund part of their vaccine research through our local universities like Universiti Sains Malaysia which has an established School of Pharmacy.  Meaning we fund USM (an example only ah) to do vaccine research for the FDI fellows.  So our university becomes cleverer, the FDI fellows get their research done and they put up their factory here in Malaysia. 

(But USM is located in Penang which is under the DAP. Hmm..that could be embarrassing. What if Guan Eng masuk Islam? Just kidding ok.)

Anyway, please go and read how private corporations and universities have cooperated on research and development in the United States. This has been going on for a hundred years. Nothing new lah. Win win situation. 

This is just one example of using taxpayers funds to shoot more than one bird with each Ringgit of taxpayers money.

So here is the soalan misteri : What exactly did the MITI Minister and the trade delegation achieve when they went to Saudi Arabia?

Artikel ini adalah pandangan penulis dan tidak semestinya mewakili MMKtT.