Meet our board of directors
President: Mr Tim Groth (Rieckermann (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd)
Vice President: Ms Geetha Kandiah (KASS International Sdn Bhd)
Treasurer: Mr Florian Herrmann (Infineon Technologies (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd)
Executive Director
Mr Daniel Bernbeck
Malaysian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Dato' Steven Aroki
Flortech Sdn Bhd
Mr Arne Graeber
Commerz Trade Services Sdn Bhd
Ms Wendy Lau
TRANSEARCH Malaysia Sdn Bhd
Mr Peter Lenhardt (Outgoing vice president)
A. & H. MEYER Sdn Bhd
Ms Eva Maegerlein
B. Braun Medical Industries Sdn Bhd
Mr Martin Metzger
YTL Power Services Sdn Bhd
Mr Marco Neelsen
Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas Sdn Bhd
Mr David Ng (Outgoing president)
International SOS (M) Sdn Bhd
Ms Trina Sim
Lufthansa Group Airlines
Ms Teoh Tsu-Shien
Henkel Malaysia Sdn Bhd
Datuk Adam Yee
Powerwell International Sdn Bhd
Datuk Muhammad Azmi Zulkifli
Invest KL Corporation
Malaysia continues to attract German investors
In his greeting message, German Ambassador to Malaysia Dr Peter Blomeyer said Malaysia and Germany's bilateral trade volume reached another record high of RM90 billion last year, more than any other ASEAN member states.
"We, Germany, are Malaysia's number one trading partner within the EU and Malaysia is Germany's number one trading partner within ASEAN. This is remarkable because Malaysia is not the largest country with respect to surface size or population of the region. So why do Germans choose Malaysia? Because Malaysia since long, [has always been] an attractive investment destination. Conditions here are favourable – at the centre of two oceans, the Indian and the Pacific Ocean, at the crossroads of the mainland and the insular world as well as just between the giants China and India," Blomeyer said.
Outgoing President's report
Outgoing president Mr David Ng took the helm in April 2022 when Malaysia was just coming out of multiple ongoing lockdowns said Malaysia is in a good spot, this year and is expected to achieve a GDP growth of 5% which is well above the average global GDP but said there are many challenges ahead.
"Inflation is rising, the ringgit has been depreciating and the war in Ukraine continues and the trade tensions between the two largest economies in the world, the US and China continue. So against this backdrop, MGCC will need to step up to promote bilateral trade between Malaysia and Germany which achieved close to EUR20 billion in 2022. That makes Malaysia a very important trading partner for Germany and therefore it was very timely for the President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier to visit Malaysia with a trade delegation in February this year," Ng said.
Climate change requires more attention
In his Executive Director's report, Mr Daniel Bernbeck highlighted several points in the AHK World Business Outlook Spring 2023 survey that was recently conducted in 94 countries where German chambers are present. The top concern was inflation and there was also a strong concern regarding government influence on supply chains as well as the fragmentation of the world economy. He added that chambers of commerce have to be sensitive to the balance between the government and private sectors to allow ease of conducting business including playing a role to protect the planet.
"Interestingly, climate change which is dominating a lot of the politics in Germany and Europe only ranks ninth worldwide as a major concern of companies. I would like to bring that into perspective," Bernbeck said.
Takeaways from a special dialogue session with InvestKL and MDEC
This year, a special dialogue session took place while the votes were being counted as part of MGCC's election proceedings to elect a new board. The dialogue session featured Invest KL Corporation chief executive officer Datuk Muhammad Azmi Zulkifli and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) senior vice president and chief digital investment officer Raymond Siva, moderated by Daniel Bernbeck, Executive Director of the Malaysian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
In case you missed it, here is a quick summary of the dialogue’s key points:
Main tools InvestKL offers to potential investors in Malaysia
As an agency under Miti, InvestKL doesn't just look at attracting investments into the greater KL area but also looks at whether those investments fit the other regions of the country.
A few initiatives are available for investors, divided into fiscal (monetary incentives) and non-fiscal (ease of doing business).
“The landscape today is where investors are looking at how easy I can do business in a country. The word ‘easy’ also means how can I better integrate with the ecosystems, setting up a company or work visa and so on.
“It is also important to note that there are a number of service providers that have helped the government from their standpoint to be giving the private sector support for any company to set up,” Azmi.
In 2020, InvestKL launched a Greater Kuala Lumpur Life Lab that looks at how the country can attract investors to go beyond the standard investment and look at how they can explore R&D and innovation.
“R&D and innovation need to be integrated with two strong aspects of the economy which is one, to collaborate with a Malaysian small medium enterprise and two, to work with a local university be it public or private. Fulfilling these criteria, we will offer a small grant to encourage and accelerate the research and innovation perspective beyond the standard investment offering,” he added.
Grants available focus on the substance of a company’s activity, InvestKL noted that is happy to see a number of smaller companies have come to the forefront that are largely driven by technology.
Malaysia's digital economy a key sector
Malaysia's digital economy journey started in 1996 with the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) stretching from the Petronas Twin Towers to Cyberjaya to bring complexity to the economy. As of 2021, the digital economy contributes 22.6% to Malaysia's GDP and expects to contribute 25.5% by 2025 which will rival oil and gas.
“So it tells you, what we took to build the oil and gas or commodity sector, what we’ve done in the digital economy in 25 years has gone right through the roof and it’s not going to stop,” Siva said.
Siva highlighted the role digitalisation played during the pandemic that catalysed innovations, forcing everyone to rethink how businesses, clients and families need to be managed and as a result, we are seeing a lot of start-ups coming into the market with new ideas, particularly from the SME sector.
“We were lucky enough because the start-up ecosystem was very innovative. MDEC also played a key role during the pandemic to keep businesses running. For example, we took on Global Business Services (GBS) and got the license from MITI to ensure they kept going on because they were the engine of growth for a lot of companies.
Another example was how MDEC facilitated German company Schott Glass’s entry into Kuala Lumpur at the height of the pandemic, said Siva.
Under the Malaysia Digital Initiative which has replaced MSC, the new initiative focuses on nine promoted sectors including digital services, agriculture, digital cities, Islamic digital economy, digital health and others.
MDEC is also looking at companies with XR, VR, drone tech, cybersecurity and cloud computing to digitalise these promoted sectors.
Siva said the agency is confident it can surpass its 25.5% target.
“In 2022 alone, it recorded RM52 billion worth of committed investments, the highest ever MDEC has ever recorded in 25 years,” he said.
Five reasons why investors love Malaysia
- Business continuity - whatever happens in government, business goes on in Malaysia. The chambers, government agencies and SMEs go on.
- Malaysia has a multilingual, digitally savvy young population. Most Malaysians in the room speak no less than three languages (their mother tongue, English and Bahasa Malaysia), Siva said.
- Location - Malaysia is at the centre of ASEAN and it is highly connected. It is also a signatory to RCEP and CPTPP, the former allows Malaysia to enjoy free trade perks from China and ASEAN whereas the latter is a trade bloc comprising Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the UK to remove trade barriers.
- Lower operational cost compared to Singapore.
- Digitally equipped – Malaysia's movement to cloud services is transforming services. More data centres coming in and how these entities catalyst other areas of growth. This combined with the 5G rollout, Malaysia has all the infrastructure that enables it to become the ideal business destination for foreign investors.