Strong FDI growth seen for Northern Corridor Economic Region

KUALA LUMPUR: The Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) is confident that the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) would be able to record double-digit growth in foreign direct investment (FDI) this year.

Chief executive Datuk Redza Rafiq said the region would continue to be a destination for FDIs because of its conducive business environment and culture, strong infrastructure and logistics network.

“If the ecosystem is good, there is no reason why I should not be confident that NCER would continue to be the destination of choice for FDI,” he told Bernama.

He said last year, the amount of FDI into the region as reported by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority was RM15.3bil.

The authority itself was able to attract almost RM10bil investment, of which 90% came from foreign investors.

Redza said the NCER, through its “Corridors and Cities” (C&C) Labs had identified six new development areas to be further explored this year.

The areas are biotechnology, transportation-based manufacturing, paddy estate amalgamation scheme, large-scale pineapple farming, healthcare travel and shared services among companies in the NCER.

The C&C Lab is a federal government initiative to align the initiatives among all corridors, solve issues and develop detailed implementation programmes critical to ensuring executive and monitoring. - Bernama

Redza said the labs were aimed to bring the five economic corridors of NCER, East Coast Economic Corridor, Iskandar Malaysia, Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy and Sabah Development Corridor to the next level, with a higher contribution from the private sector in new areas of development.

“C&C Labs have helped to resolve the development challenges of the economic corridors and build on the existing development programmes such as the 10th Malaysian Plan, the Economic Transformation Programme and Government Transformation Programme as well as the development programmes being implemented at state and the corridor level,” Redza said.

He said the NCIA would be holding a C&C Lab Open Day this Saturday at Padang Esplanande in Taiping. The event will be officiated by Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

The road show was aimed at educating the public on the outcome of the C&C Labs which had taken place from Sept 12 to Nov 4 last year. - Bernama

“This would also enable us to create a strong and vibrant secondary city that will support Kuala Lumpur.”

Further on NCER's progress, he said it was in the process of shortlisting projects for approval from the Economic Planning Unit for implementation in 2013 and beyond. - Bernama