Its minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said the business association’s findings reflect confidence in the Madani government’s policies and its earnest efforts to facilitate the investors’ journey since December 2022.

“Miti welcomes the findings from Amcham’s EIS 2022-23, notably how US manufacturing companies’ RM92.2 billion investments to date have contributed RM199.4 billion to our exports and RM23.3 billion of spillover impact to Malaysian companies as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), notably in the electrical and electronics (E&E) sector.

“These created 126,185 jobs for Malaysians, including 232 PhD holders and 4,219 master’s degree holders,” he said in a LinkedIn post today.

Yesterday, Amcham presented the findings from the survey, which saw the participation of 81 members.

Of the respondents, 65 were American multinational companies and half were manufacturing companies, with E&E manufacturers being among the largest groups of respondents.

Tengku Zafrul said Miti appreciates Amcham members’ commitment to enhancing Malaysia’s workforce, with 65% of manufacturers offering fully funded training initiatives.

This, he said, reflects the New Industrial Master Plan 2030’s (NIMP 2030) focus on catalysing public-private collaborations for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programmes.

“The fact that a majority of respondents will be incorporating artificial intelligence into their business activities in the next three years signals a potential uptick for the Malaysian E&E industry.

“We are also heartened by the finding that 60% of American manufacturing companies are planning additional investments in the next five years,” he said.

Tengku Zafrul said that together with the RM1.92 billion research and development allocation by American manufacturing companies in 2022-23, all these collectively support the achievement of Malaysia’s key objectives to move up the global value chain while securing higher pay for local skilled workers, as outlined by the NIMP 2030.