KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim says the RM170 billion worth of investments commitment from China will be implemented this year or latest by next year.
Anwar said all the projects, based on 19 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) between businesses in China and Malaysia, will be monitored by the International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) and the Chinese government under the purview of Prime Minister Li Qiang.
"This was decided together with Li, to ensure that the companies involved could start the implementation of the MoU as planned," said Anwar, who is also Finance Minister, during the Minister's Question Time in Dewan Rakyat today.
Anwar was responding to a supplementary question from Datuk Ku Abd Rahman Ku Ismail (PN-Kubang Pasu).
Ku Abdul Rahman asked the prime minister if all MoUs signed recently will be translated into actual investment.
Anwar added nine other proposals for the inking of MoUs were rejected, as the proposals had no timeline for it to be implemented at least by year-end.
The premier said two companies already planned to implement projects as early as next month.
"One of them is Geely. This matter has been confirmed by Proton on an implementation of a programme in Tanjung Malim, in addition to the existing programmes," he said.
Anwar also expressed confidence that the implementation of the projects, based on the MoUs signed, would materialise as planned.
"Unlike before, this time we did not ink MoUs with companies that only make the announcement (of their intention to invest in Malaysia), but never materialise it," he said.
