Malaysian companies should upgrade their services,
capabilities and production quality to meet the requirements of high value-added and advanced
technology industries, said Malaysia's International Trade and Industry Minister Dato' Sri Mustapa Mohamed.
"This will allow local players to leverage on the opportunities of being part of the MNCs’ competitive
global supply chain," he said at the opening of the Grow with Us Seminar, a joint collaboration
between the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) and the Malaysian Investment
Development Finance (MIDF) to update companies on the latest government policies and
facilities.
Dato' Sri Mustapa said that the government has adopted several proactive economic measures to
assist Malaysian businesses in the current challenging economic times. These include the Working
Capital Guarantee Scheme of RM2 billion for SMEs, 5% to 30% import duty exemption on 90 items in the
manufacturing sector and an additional allocation of RM1 billion for the Domestic Investment
Strategic Fund (DISF) under the 11th Malaysia Plan.
As of September 2015, MIDA has approved RM756.4 million of the DISF grant for 184 projects with
investments of RM8.1 billion. “As at December 2014, 800 projects have been implemented in Negeri Sembilan, with a total
investment of RM32 billion. From these projects, more than 90,000 jobs were created. For the nine
months of this year, Negeri Sembilan attracted a total of 29 manufacturing projects with approved
investments worth RM1.42 billion," Dato' Sri Mustapa said.
