KUALA LUMPUR: US businesses are targeting more than US$500 million in new investments to come into Malaysia over the next three to five years says the US-ASEAN Business Council.
A delegation of the Asia-Pacific CEO’s and heads of 10 major US companies will begin a series of meetings here focused on long-term investments in Malaysia and support for increased ASEAN economic integration.
The US is Malaysia’s largest foreign investor, and the companies on this delegation are committed in continuing to build the bilateral trading relationship, it said.
The high-level delegation will visit Indonesia and Malaysia and meet with a wide variety of government officials and business leaders, including Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
The delegation include companies from ACE Group, Cigna, the Coca-Cola Company, DuPont, GE, Intel, Medtronic, Monsanto, Procter & Gamble, and UL.
“Our delegation strongly supports Malaysia’s ‘Vision 2020’ goals, which aims to make Malaysia a high-income nation by 2020 and its leadership role as this year’s ASEAN Chairman in the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)” said Marc Mealy, Vice President for Policy of the US-ASEAN Business Council.
“By taking continued action on strengthening human capital development and ensuring the free flow of data, Malaysia will continue to attract high-quality foreign investment and applying these across ASEAN will strengthen the entire region.
“The Council and US investors have confidence in Malaysia’s growing economy and continued economic liberalisation,”he said in a statement.
“Trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will also give Malaysia access to significant opportunities on both sides of the Pacific,” he added.
This mission will offer US business support for key areas of integration, including regulatory harmonisation, revival of the e-ASEAN Initiative to secure ASEAN’s position as an ICT hub.
It will also cover human capital development, and the development and training of SMEs through efforts such as the US-ASEAN Business Alliance for Competitive SMEs, a joint project of the Council and USAID.