How will Malaysia’s most progressive state — Selangor — build on its status as the country’s chief economic and logistics engine? An emerging economic development plan reveals a two-pronged strategy. First, Selangor will cultivate its core industrial clusters, which are Transport Equipment, Electrical & Electronics (E&E), Life Sciences, Machinery & Equipment (M&E) and Manufacturing of Food & Beverages (F&B). Second, Invest Selangor (formerly Selangor State Investment Centre) will broaden its focus to include key services sectors, including Logistics, Healthcare and other industries with a strong research and development component (e.g. Biotechnology).
“Over the past five years, sectorial distribution of investment into Selangor was concentrated mainly in the five core clusters,” says Mr. Hasan Azhari Hj. Idris, CEO of Invest Selangor. “Transport equipment led the grouping with a 28 percent share of investment within the state, while E&E and F&B both had an equal share of 11 percent each. The chemicals sector, part of the life sciences cluster, also maintained a double-digit share of 10 percent, whereas M&E had a share of 6 percent.”
Logistics is a natural sector to cultivate — not just as a base for companies needing distribution and related services in Malaysia, but from which to service their entire Southeast Asia network of operations. Selangor is home to Port Klang, the 13th busiest container port in the world, and to two airports — Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Subang Skypark, both of which are home to growing aerospace manufacturing clusters and MRO services.
“As the most developed state in Malaysia and being free of natural disasters, Selangor offers the best investment environment for investors,” says Hasan. “Located in the heart of ASEAN and bordering the Straits of Malacca, Selangor provides easy connectivity to various parts of the world, the ASEAN markets in particular. It is a major trading hub in the region.”
A state of-the-art network of highways connects the state to all of peninsular Malaysia and its ports in the north, in Penang, and in the south, in Johor, in addition to the Klang port facilities. In June, the Selangor government approved proceeding with the first phase of the East Klang Valley Expressway. “Selangor has initiated traffic management and smart city development plans aimed at improving the standard of living and quality of life in the state,” notes Hasan.
Selangor is a major supplier of talent within Malaysia and intends to improve the quality of the talent to investors in Malaysia’s key industries. “Selangor is well positioned as an educational hub as well as a human resource and training center,” he points out. Selangor is home to more than 140 colleges, institutes and universities, including branch campuses of several foreign universities. Public universities in Selangor include the National University of Malaysia, MARA University of Technology, Putra University Malaysia, International Islamic University of Malaysia, as well as the state-owned university — University of Selangor.
“Having the largest multilingual workforce in Malaysia, Selangor offers wide language coverage to investors in many parts of the world, including certain ASEAN, Chinese and Indian regions,” says Hasan. “It is ideal, therefore, for regional headquarters and logistics centers.”
This investment profile was prepared under the auspices of Invest Selangor Berhad. For more information, visit www.investselangor.my.
