Malaysia has shown signs of perceiving Indonesia as a source of investment that could boost its own economic growth by driving its ambitious economic transformation programs designed to increase its income per capita to US$15,000 by 2020.
Kuala Lumpur invited Indonesian businesspeople to explore investment potentials in Malaysia during the recent visit of Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to Jakarta.
Muhyiddin met with representatives of Indonesian prominent businessmen to affirm his country’s commitment to opening larger opportunities for private business entities to become involved in the country’s development projects.
“I came here to explain about Malaysia’s economic transformation programs, including 131 projects opened for the private sector’s involvement both from Malaysia and Indonesia,” he said at a press conference after the meeting at Bank Mega Tower in Jakarta on Friday evening.
He said the Malaysian government had decided to reduce its involvement in those offered projects, adding that the government would cover no more than 8 percent of all required funds.
“The remaining 92 percent is expected to come from private investments,” he said.For the visit, Malaysia had prepared several incentives, such as tax credit and free import duties for private companies involved in projects offered by the government, Yassin said. He added that his country was also ready to offer more competitive incentives if necessary.
“We can also offer customized incentives based on negotiations with investors,” he told Malaysian and Indonesian reporters attending the press conference.
Indonesian renowned entrepreneur and chairman of Para Group, Chairul Tanjung, said that Indonesian businessmen welcomed the Malaysian government’s goodwill and pledged to seriously observe all investment opportunities offered by the neighboring country.
“This is a new thing, a deputy prime minister coming to us [Indonesian businessmen] and explaining what has changed in Malaysia’s economy,” he said.
He went on to say that several businessmen had expressed interest in investing in the near future. However, he said, the visit was just an initial meeting and there would be a series of other meetings to flesh out the investment plans.
“James Riyadi [owner of Lippo Group] said that he was interested in expanding his healthcare business both in Indonesia and Malaysia, while Edwin Suryajaya [owner of Astra Agro Lestari] said he was ready to fund projects in Malaysia if he could find suitable local partners,” Chairul said.
Para Group, which owns a 40 percent stake in giant retail company Carrrefour Indonesia, earlier showed interest in investing in Malaysia by acquiring Carrefour Malaysia, but due to technical problems, the company retracted its bid, he said.
Muhyiddin said the total value of the 131 projects offered to the private sector was US$440 billion. He said he expected that his country could gather around $15 billion in investments a year for the next 10 years.
“We have 12 key sectors that can boost our economic growth.
“Among others are oil and gas, education, and palm oil,” he explained.
He said that he also saw a growing enthusiasm to invest in several sectors like finance, healthcare, construction and transportation. He said he hoped his country could work with Indonesia in developing entrepreneurship training to produce more businessmen in his country.
Source: The Jakarta Post
0 comments:
Post a Comment