KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) said Wednesday that Malaysia has attracted 264.6 billion ringgit (59.9 billion U.S. dollars) approved investments in 2022.
The approved investments include a total of 4,454 projects and are expected to create 140,370 job opportunities for Malaysians, MIDA said in a statement.
According to MIDA, foreign direct investment accounted for 61.7 percent of total investments, or 163.3 billion ringgit.
Meanwhile, domestic direct investment made up 38.3 percent, or 101.3 billion ringgit.
China led the way in total approved foreign investments, followed by the United States, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Japan, it said.
The services sector is the major contributor with 154 billion ringgit, followed by 84.3 billion ringgit in the manufacturing sector, and 26.3 billion ringgit in the primary sector.
"Moving forward, as Malaysia strives to become Asia's investment gateway, we are making every effort to quickly emerge as ASEAN's digital hub, owing to our highly developed information and communication technology infrastructure, talented science, technology, engineering and mathematics pool, strong intellectual property protection framework, and rule of law," said Malaysia's International Trade and Industry Minister Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz. (1 ringgit equals 0.22 U.S. dollar) ■