SPOTLIGHT 5

Zainal Amanshah is currently the Chief Executive Officer of InvestKL, an investment promotion agency (IPA) under purview of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and Ministry of Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing. InvestKL’s key role is to attract 100 of the world’s largest multinationals to invest in the Greater Kuala Lumpur (GKL) area by 2020.

Prior to this position, Zainal has 22 years of experience in the private sector as the Group CEO and co-founder of REDtone, a Malaysian public-listed telecommunications provider. In the course of his career, Zainal is also well versed with the public sector especially in foreign investment.

Property Quotient (PQ) interviewed him recently to gain insight into Invest KL’s initiatives and how multinational companies (MNCs) will influence the commercial property market in Kuala Lumpur.

PQ: Invest KL’s mandate focus on attracting large global multinationals to set up their business in Greater Kuala Lumpur/ Klang Valley. What is the rationale behind this?Zainal: With total population of 6 million and a GNI contribution of 30%, Kuala Lumpur needs to be recognised as a vibrant place in terms of doing business and liveability in order to attract more foreign direct investment (FDI), create jobs etc. So to that extent, our government has set this vision under Greater Kuala Lumpur (GKL) plan for KL

to be top 20 in terms of economic activities and top 20 in terms of deliverability by the year 2020. Invest KL is the dedicated entity that will bring this to fruition. This is how we are complementing Malaysian Industrial Development Authority’s (MIDA’s) role as the lead investment agency in the country, but we are more specialised when it comes to KL.

PQ:“Moderation of growth in the economy could cause a slowdown investment, while companies wait for conditions to improve at a better rate”. How will Invest KL react to drive a positive sentiment back on track this year?Zainal: I think in any crisis there are also opportunities and we see that there are opportunities in this scenario. One can learn from Warren Buffet’s famous quote. “Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful”. While Japan is facing a natural disaster crisis, the European economies and the US are in bad shape as unemployment remains at an all time high, there are opportunities for Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia. A lot of economic activities is here and the outlook is good. Politically we are still stable even though election is round the corner and if you talk about liveability and the cost of doing business, we are extremely cost competitive.

PQ: Malaysia has shown tremendous improvement in ranking in terms of doing business, global competitiveness as well as foreign direct investment confidence index in 2012. Can you comment on the improvement in ranking?Zainal: The improvement in the ranking actually needs effort; you need to show results before you can really move up the ranking. It doesn’t happen just purely by chance and shows that the government’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) is working. We are moving deliberately towards the right direction and it will further emphasise the point that Malaysia is a hidden jewel. As Datuk Seri Idris Jala said,” this is not a sprint, it’s a marathon”. There appears to be a structural change in perception as we can clearly see that the FDI confidence ranking moved up from 31st to 10th position in 2012. All these rankings prove that we are getting better and are able to answer many of investor’s

PQ: On the real estate front, a large proportion of Kuala Lumpur’s office space is vacant in recent years. What sort of quality should we have in commercial

buildings in order to boost the demand?Zainal: Property developments are very encouraging. A lot of the new hubs coming in are what I call self- sufficient and self-contained. My advice to the developers would be that these developments should have features like green, MSC status, good high-speed broadband and if they don’t have that, then they need to upgrade. It’s not so much on promoting real estate but we are encouraging them (developers) to create an identity. If KLCC decided to be the oil & gas hub, Petronas should have enough base in order to accommodate the surrounding ecosystem. Same goes to KL Metropolis, you have the office, you must have the connectivity to it and the rest will follow. On the softer side, the walkway and the connectivity is important as LRT/MRT are now become extremely necessary to compliment those buildings.

PQ: As a closing statement, what is the outlook for headquarters relocation and businesses expansion throughout Asia in 2012?Zainal: I think 2012 and beyond until 2020 does look positive due to the growth of Asia. Many companies now are really expanding; they are looking at the potential sectors of growth and scaling up their operations accordingly. Some of the ETP announcement does involve regional headquarters activities or even regional centres of excellence - So this is a very encouraging trend. Of course the competition is very stiff but I think the fundamentals are all there for KL. When you look at headquarter hub of opportunities, companies would naturally look to the city because of the liberality, connectivity and lifestyle they want.

For more information about InvestKL, visit http://www.investkl.gov.my

by Hazrul Izwan

KUALA LUMPUR, A REGIONAL BUSINESS

HUB Zainal Amanshah shares his views on Malaysian commercial real estate and outlook for headquarters relocation and business expansion for 2012

OF CHOICE

Zainal Amanshah, Chief Executive Officer, InvestKL