Penang government should explain to the industries why the sudden diversion of the state resources which affect the continual growth of the industrial sector.

Its SME bureau chairman Michael Heah said the party had received many reports and feedback from the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and industry leaders that the state government has diverted and expanded significantly its resources into service sector.

“We do not object to the state government of supporting the service sector, but we would like the state government to explain to the industries why the sudden diversion of the state resources,” he told a press conference on Thursday March 4.

He said the Penang government has been continuing playing the political-blaming strategy game without successful investment from their overseas trips in the past two years.

“They had been to South Korea, Taiwan, United States, Singapore and Middle East but from the its record as at the end of 2009, only RM 2.2 billion investment investing into Penang, the lowest in the past five years,” he said.

He said the state, which has more than 30 years of experience in the electrical and electronic industrial sector have some of the international household names in its stable such as Intel, AMD, Motorola, Fairchild (NS), Agilent (HP), Osram (Siemens), Robert Bosch, Renesas (Hitatchi), B.Braun, Dell, Sanyo, Toshiba, Knowles and many others.

“We hope that the Penang government would capitalize the state highly trained and skilled workforce from these multinational corporations (MNC) to attract more foreign investment instead diverting from its core competency, “he said.

However, Heah said the state government should announce its State Master Industrial Plans within the next three months to help the state manufacturing industry, especially to the SMEs supporting industry who are fighting for survival in this competitive environment.

He added that according to Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) statistic, the state suffered a serious decline in investment in 2009 by a sharp decline of 78 percent as compared to 2008.

“There was also a significant decrease in the number of approved projects from 151 projects in 2008 to 104 projects in 2009,” he said.

He said Penang is also among the states with the highest decline rate of investment as compared to an average aggregate of 48 percent decline in the total amount of investment in Malaysia in 2009.

Heah hoped the State Government would focus more on attracting foreign and domestic investment in the industrial sector.

“On behalf of the Penangites, we hope that the state government to be more proactive with not just empty talk and continue to blame the Federal Government for lack of funding.

“Instead of a Government who keep finding excuses and blaming on the previous government, we believe Penang people prefer a forward looking and result oriented State Government,” he said.

He said the present state government should set their investment target above RM10 billion by end of 2010, the same figure in 2008, since the economic has recovered.

by Editorial Desk
gerakan4u.com