KUALA LUMPUR (July 31): Government investment promotion agency (IPA) InvestKL has won the "Top Investment Promotion Agency 2019" under the Asia-Pacific Regional category by Site Selection for 2019.

In a statement today, InvestKL said it was also recognised as "the most professionally responsive to inquiries", "having the best reputation for protecting investor confidentiality" and "aftercare services".

The recognition marks the third time InvestKL won the awards from Site Selection, after winning in 2015 and 2017.

InvestKL acting chief executive officer Muhammad Azmi Zulkifli said winning the award is a hallmark of the collective efforts of Government stakeholders — the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), the Ministry of Federal Territories and Kuala Lumpur City Hall — to attract investments to Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia.

"We are honoured to receive our third IPA Award and very much appreciate the recognition by the Site Selection consultants from around the world.

"InvestKL remains focused on attracting high value, high skilled and innovation-led investments to create quality jobs for Malaysians. InvestKL’s aftercare services focuses largely on meeting the needs of our MNCs and collaborating to develop the local talent pipeline with our Malaysia Global Talent Programme, and working with MNCs to facilitate industry-academia collaborations, amongst others," Azmi added.

The statement said that to date, InvestKL has attracted 80 multinational companies (MNCs) with approved and committed investments of RM12 billion, and that created more than 12,000 regional high-skilled jobs have been created.

At the same time, InvestKL was also noted to be aligned to the Industry4WRD blueprint launched by MITI, which aims to increase productivity, encourage innovation, and upskill the workforce to adapt Industry 4.0 initiatives.

"We have MNCs which are pushing the Industry 4.0 agenda and working in areas closely related to A.I., robotics, big data analytics, IoT and cyber security, to name a few. These MNCs provide benefits to the local economy and bring in specialised expertise in terms of new technologies, industry skills and knowledge transfer. This in turn continues to enhance the capabilities of our local talent pool," Azmi said.

MITI Minister Datuk Darell Leiking had previously announced that Malaysia had approved RM29.3 billion in Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in the first quarter of 2019, which is an increase of 73.6%.

RM20.2 billion and RM8.1 billion of the FDI  were for manufacturing and services respectively, with RM1 billion for main industries, commodities and others.