RAFIDAH URGES GOVT TO STUDY NATIONAL POLICY DIRECTION ON FOREIGN INVESTMENT

KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 (Bernama) -- Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz has urged the government to study the national policy direction to attract and ensure foreign investment remains in the country.

The former Minister of International Trade and Industry said Malaysia lacked attractive factors to ensure foreign investors invest in Malaysia as well as complement domestic investors with benefits.

“We seem to have fewer pull factors or interesting elements to attract investment. We generally announce that we have many would-be investors but has this been realised? Many have been asking.

“Previously, I was not allowed to make any public announcement (if nothing is concrete yet) before the deal becomes a reality.

“This is despite signing a memorandum of undertaking and identifying investors, where the factory is and are already looking for partners here,” she told reporters after an exclusive roundtable series titled “The Evolving Threat Matrix in the Digital Economy” today.

The roundtable series was organised by the Malaysia Global Business Forum (MGBF).

Rafidah stressed that there should be a capacity to pre-empt new developments and find solutions for these issues.

“Things are evolving so fast. Most importantly, I beg everybody to have a clear regional and global vision and not have a counter-productive cocooned mindset and approaches.

“Who is monitoring this? At any one time, we used to have an auditing exercise every month to know that we have a physical stockpile. We buy if the supply is not enough. 

“We do not want any disruption, right? And I just heard today that Thailand is in shortage of rice and is having a disruption,” she said.

Earlier, Rafidah was a panellist at a fireside chat session on “Maintaining Strategic Interests in Critical Value Chains”. 

The half-day roundtable was also organised by MGBF.

-- BERNAMA