Many years ago I read about an entity called InvestKL. Their goal was to attract 100 multinationals (MNCs) to set up their regional hubs in Greater KL. As usual, lots of questions such as what is the size of these 100 MNCs, is the goal realistic, how much can these 100 MNCs help Greater KL etc. Well, their targets include Fortune 500 companies or Forbes Global 2,000. So, yes it’s not simply any foreign companies. Latest update, they have already managed to attract 47 MNCs to date and thus well on track to hit 100 MNCs by 2020. Actually majority of the names stated in the latest report such as Hobsons, Cameron, Valmont, Zurich, SPIE, Indra Sistemas, Saipem dan Codemaster are not well known to me. Some other MNCs attracted thus far include Schlumberger, Cargill, Linde, Clariant, Epson Precision, Hitachi Systems, Toshiba, Agusta Westland, IBM dan Aecom.
Big names are important, of course but the most important thing in my opinion is the reported 6,312 new jobs created and that 2,598 of these have been filled by locals. More often than not the salaries offered are pretty good because by paying in RM, they would have saved substantially compared to their originating country. Thus most of the time, MNCs tend to pay 20-30% higher than the typical salaries offered. (Yes, they do and that’s why applications tend to be much higher) This is not all, 466 were filled by expatriates. In other words, at least 466 units of high end condominium has also been filled by these expatriates. This is definitely positive for the owners of these high-end condo units.
I wish them the best but I do hope that they would focus on industries which is also complementary with what the nation should aim towards. High technology and not the manual works. In other words, the jobs created by these MNCs should be of high end technological based and not just the usual business outsourcing hubs which ultimately the lower costs countries would win in the longer term. No worries, for now even for business process outsourcing, Malaysia is still leading compared to even our regional peers. Yes, this is true even if there are some Malaysians who are saying that the standard of English in all the regional countries are getting better while Malaysia’s getting worse.
written on 22 Feb 2015
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