MALAYSIA SERIOUS IN ATTRACTING FOREIGN CAPITAL AND TALENT, SAYS RAJA NAZRIN

KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 (Bernama) -- Malaysia is serious in attracting foreign
capital and talent and also recognises that any transformation will involve
massive investments.

"Investments are the catalyst needed to turbo-change the economy. But we
know that investments do not occur in a vacuum," the northern Perak state Crown
Prince, Raja Dr Nazrin Shah, said at the Offshore Technology Conference 2011 in
Texas Wednesday.

The text of his speech was released here Thursday.

He said there has to be a business ecosystem to attract and utilise
investments in the most productive and profitable way, and that the government
is now committed to putting one in place.

On the external front, Raja Nazrin said Malaysia has done and is doing
more to ensure that international business can be conducted as transparently and
seamlessly as possible.

Malaysia, he added, has pursued multilateral, regional and bilateral
economic partnerships.

At the regional level, Raja Nazrin said Malaysia is best-known for its
leading role in advocating the creation of an Asean Economic Community by 2015.

With a Free Trade Area (FTA) already in place since 2010, efforts are now
ongoing to broaden the scope of cooperation to include the services sector,
investments and skilled human resource.

Malaysia also benefits through the Asean economic partnership agreements
with Australia and New Zealand, China, India, Japan and South Korea. It has also
concluded bilateral economic arrangements with Chile, India, Japan, Pakistan and
New Zealand.

Raja Nazrin said Malaysia is now in the midst of negotiating the
nine-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), of which the United States is a
member and still under negotiations are agreements with Australia, Turkey and
the European Union.

"All these agreements which Malaysia is putting into place, serve not only
to open up markets and attract investment but also establish legally binding
regimes, that facilitate the policy transparency and predictability that serious
long-term investors require," he added.

He said Malaysia is one of the best gateways to access the Asean
and East Asian markets and it is endowed with a sophisticated economy, an
educated workforce and well-established institutions at reasonable cost.

He also said in the light of the unrelenting competitive pressures as a
result of globalisation and the huge trade and investment pull from emerging
giants such as China, India and Brazil, Malaysia must remain competitive.

"The two turbo-thrusters designed to propel the economy into the orbit of
high-income economies are the Government Transformation Programme and the
Economic Transformation Programme," he added.

Raja Nazrin explained that these programmes involved coordinated decisions
and action plans, public input and feedback, transparent and concrete roadmaps
that act as performance contracts with clear delivery principles and high degree
of public accountability.