KUALA LUMPUR: Greater Kuala Lumpur, which comprises Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, recorded the highest investments approved last year totalling RM55.8 billion.
Selangor brought in RM38.7 billion while Kuala Lumpur recorded a total of RM17.1 billion investments in 2020, with Sarawak and Penang securing RM19.6 billion and RM16 billion in investments respectively in 2020.
These five states alone contributed over 60 per cent of total approved investments for 2020.
InvestKL chief executive officer Muhammad Azmi Zulkifli said the services sector continued to be a key driver of the Malaysian economy, contributing to more than 40 per cent of total investments in the economy in 2020, with high-value services contributing 21.4 per cent or RM14.3 billion of investments in this sector.
According to the 2020 investment report by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), the top five contributors of approved investments in the services sector were real estate (RM31.2 billion), utilities (RM10.8 billion), support services (RM5.2 billion), telecommunications (RM5.2 billion) and MSC status projects (RM3.9 billion).
"High-value services such as telecommunications, support services and MSC status projects remained a key driver of the services sector in 2020, despite the pandemic weighing down on the global economy and overall domestic economic sentiment last year.
"In fact, the information and communication, transportation and storage segment recorded a revenue increase of 3.4 per cent to RM61.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020.
"This shows that the high-value and high-impact services sub-sector is on an uptrend despite the contraction in the overall services sector," said Azmi.
He said over 33,000 projected jobs for the services sector augurs well for the sector's future revenue and profitability, and will also ease the country's unemployment rate, which currently stood at 4.5 per cent as at end 2020.
He said the high-technology sectors will continue expanding and hiring, which will create more jobs for Malaysians, ultimately boosting productivity and the domestic economy, which will in turn boost economic growth
"At InvestKL, the next 100 companies we aim to attract are technological-driven, innovative, yet sustainable.
"These high-value, high-impact and high-technology investments will boost the growth of many sub-sectors and complements the national priorities towards long-term economic success," Azmi said.
Last year, InvestKL achieved its mandate of attracting 100 multinational companies (MNC) by 2020 to establish their regional services hubs in Greater Kuala Lumpur.
As at end October 2020, these MNCs have contributed investments of RM15.2 billion, and created more than 15,000 regional, high-skilled jobs.