Johari said these foreign-owned projects were among the 1,361 that had been approved from 2022 to September 2025, with all the investments expected to create 185,044 job opportunities.

He said the 71% realised investments involved 966 projects which were worth RM282.2 billion in approved investments.

“Some 356 manufacturing projects are still at the planning stage. These projects involve RM60.1 billion in approved investments that are expected to generate 39,121 new job opportunities.

“Only 2.8% of projects are not proceeding,” he said in a written parliamentary reply.

Johari said a foreign investment is deemed “realised” once it has commenced operations, started installing machines or is in the process of building or renting factories, buildings or warehouses.

He said the 966 realised projects had already created 141,470 job opportunities, of which 7,865 offered salaries of more than RM10,000 a month.

This was followed by 21,550 jobs with salaries of between RM5,000 and RM10,000.

“The majority of jobs in this salary scale are in the management, professional, engineering, oversight, and skilled worker categories,” he said.

The remaining jobs were for roles such as machine operators, sales staff, clerks and general workers.