KUALA LUMPUR, May 22 — According to the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (Miti), an estimated 157,760 job opportunities were generated from approved and realised foreign direct investment (FDI) projects from 2017 to 2022.

Deputy Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Liew Chin Tong said that from this total, 133,117 jobs or 84.3 per cent were for local workers and the remaining 26,643 were for foreigners.

"These (jobs) were created from 1,392 foreign-owned projects worth RM426.6 billion,” he said during the Question and Answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Liew was responding to a question from Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani (BN-Titiwangsa) on the number of jobs that resulted from FDI from 2017 to 2022.

The minister said that 1,164 manufacturing projects involving RM329.9 billion in investments were realised, which created 150,873 job opportunities.

He said the five main manufacturing industries involving foreign ownership which created the highest number of jobs were the electrical and electronics industries involving 75,593 jobs, base metal products (14,477 jobs), machinery and equipment (7,001 jobs), non-metallic minerals (6,820 jobs) and rubber products (5,721 jobs).

Liew said 228 services sector projects with an investment value of RM96.7 billion were realised from 2017 to 2022 and created 6,887 job opportunities.

"The three main subsectors that created the most jobs were global establishments (3,197 jobs), support services (1,481 jobs) and health services (1,303 jobs),” he said.

Meanwhile, responding to a supplementary question from Johari questioning the signing memorandums of understanding (MoUs) between Malaysian companies and Chinese companies without strong track records, Liew said: "The signed project or MoU will be monitored by the committee specifically and also by the normal process adopted by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA).

Moving forward, the minister said that the government would follow the five basic criteria of the National Investment Policy.

"These criteria are to increase the complexity of the economy, to generate high-value and high-income investments, to expand domestic networks and also to create new economic clusters in addition to what is available and also to increase inclusivity.

"This is our dashboard to monitor the investments we received,” he added. — Bernama