KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — Tech giants Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Tesla Inc only agreed to come to Malaysia after the government stabilised, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today.
Anwar, who was appointed Malaysia’s 10th prime minister after a fractious general election last November, acknowledged that investment talks with the two companies began in December 2019.
“This is true, the talks between the government and AWS began in December 2019 and continued during the previous administrations,” he said during the Prime Minister’s Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat.
“But Amazon really postponed its final decision and only decided during the unity government. This is a valid statement from Amazon,” he added.
Anwar was responding to Kubang Pasu MP Datuk Ku Abdul Rahman Ku Ismail who wanted to know how the investments by AWS and Tesla would galvanise Malaysia’s economy.
AWS and Tesla created business buzz when they confirmed that they would be investing in Malaysia earlier this month.
In 2019, the government was helmed by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad when the latter was with Pakatan Harapan (PH), which is now chaired by Anwar.
However, the PH government collapsed two months later in February 2020 and was replaced by the Perikatan Nasional coalition chaired by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, which was in turn replaced by an alliance with the Barisan Nasional coalition with Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob as prime minister from August 2021 to October 2022.
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz previously said that the proposed investments by Tesla and AWS were expected to create high-quality job opportunities and invigorate Malaysia’s economy through a cascade effect post-Covid.
He added that the decision to invest here was based on Malaysia’s strong electrical and electronics ecosystem to support the manufacture of electric vehicles.
