The Selangor International Business Summit (SIBS) 2020 held its opening ceremony earlier today making it the first state-led virtual platform.
The summit organised by Invest Selangor under the patronage of the Selangor State will be streamed on their website from today till October 17. The four-day virtual summit comprises exhibitions, conferences, and webinar sessions featuring Selangor International Expo, Selangor ASEAN Business Conference, and Selangor Smart City & Digital Economy Convention.
“Although we’re unable to meet face-to-face, the use of technology has enabled us to continue our engagement and communications with larger business communities, potential partners, and stakeholders,” Selangor State Executive Councillor (EXCO) for Investment, Industry and Commerce and SMEs, Teng Chang Khim
He further mentioned that the virtual SIBS may be attended by a wider range of visitors from almost every corner of the world and for a longer period. He ensured that the SIBS 2020 will still include the three main components.
The first component being the Selangor International Expo (SIE) and F&B Trade Expo featuring 300 exhibitors. Second, the Selangor ASEAN Business Conference (SABC), which has a new feature of monthly webinar series from last August to December, and the last one, Smart City & Digital Economy Convention (SDEC) that includes the Malaysia Top E-Commerce Merchant Awards, a prestigious award seeks to reward the most successful, creative and innovative homegrown e-merchants.
Despite the current economic downturn, he expressed pride in Selangor for its comprehensive and complete infrastructure, competitive and business-friendly environment with major ICT innovation and manufacturing hubs, and having the largest multilingual and talented workforce in the country supported by over 160 higher learning institutions.
“Selangor is ready to continue to lead the country out of the economic uncertainty sooner than later. However, with the current economic situation, we understand the need for us to continuously improve our services to maintain leadership and position in the country,” he emphasised.
“It is our continuous aim to transform Selangor into a global trading hub with an emphasis on the region as a market with over 640 million population and home to some 200 of the world’s largest companies,” he added.
The event continued with Amirudin Shari, Menteri Besar Selangor’s speech saying “according to the world investment report 2020 by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), foreign direct investment (FDI) flows are expected to plunge about 40 percent this year from 1.54 trillion USD registered in 2019.
Meanwhile, in Asia, FDIs are forecasted to fall between 30 percent and 45 percent year on year. Despite the negative outlook, I am pleased to note that Selangor remains as an attractive investment destination.”
On Selangor’s economic development, Teng said RM3.3 billion investments have been approved as of June.
“Although it is lesser than expected, there are still five billion ringgit investments pending for approval, which will sum up to RM8.5 billion altogether by end of the year. It is notable that last year Selangor recorded the second highest investment of RM17 billion and highest of RM18.9 billion in 2018,” he said.
He also expects a good budget allocation in the upcoming national budget as both Selangor and Kuala Lumpur has contributed 24.3 percent and 16 percent respectively to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last year.
