Malaysia: Healthy Committed Investments in 2022 – UOB

UOB Group’s Senior Economist Julia Goh and Economist Loke Siew Ting comments on the latest Committed Investment figures in Malaysia.

Key Takeaways

“Malaysia approved a total of MYR264.6bn investments in 2022, which was 17.6% more than our projected MYR225.0bn but 14.5% lower than the MYR309.4bn recorded in 2021. Over 58% of the total approved investments last year were channelled into the services sector (MYR154.0bn); about one-thirds were injected into the manufacturing sector (MYR84.3bn or ~32%); while the remaining 10% were for the agriculture sector (MYR26.4bn).”

“Foreign direct investments (FDIs) remained the key source for the second straight year since the outbreak of COVID-19, contributing nearly 62% or MYR163.3bn to the overall committed investments. This compared to domestic direct investments (DDIs) that made up about 38% or MYR101.3bn. Top FDI sources were the People’s Republic of China (PRC, MYR55.4bn or 33.9% share), the USA (MYR29.2bn or 17.9% share), the Netherlands (MYR20.4bn or 12.5% share), Singapore (MYR13.6bn or 8.3% share), and Japan (MYR11.4bn or 7.0%).”

“For 2023, we keep a prudent view on the committed investment flows given the persistent uncertainty surrounding the global economy, monetary and financial conditions, as well as geopolitical risks. Also taking into consideration a number of promising projects in MIDA’s pipeline that involved total potential investments of MYR14.6bn, we maintain our full-year approved investment projection at MYR228.0bn for this year (MIDA target: +20% to MYR318.0bn).”