Attracting Taiwanese investors is an important goal for this Malaysian State

One of the most developed states in Malaysia - Johor aims to bring more business and foreign investment in 2017 from an unlikely source. Taiwanese foreign investment plans for the new year involve massive expansions in South-East Asia, especially in booming manufacturing destinations such as Malaysia, and Johor in particular.

The chairman of the local trade, tourism and consumerism committee, Mr, Datuk Tee Siew Kiong advised that: "We already have existing Taiwanese investors operating their businesses in Johor for the past 25 years, which have seen an accumulative investments of US$1.5bil (RM6.72bil) from 353 investors."

Taiwan is enjoying growing trends in trade with Malaysia, beginning this year with just 3.1% increase, but anticipating strong performance for several industries, reaching up to 8% increase by the end of 2017.

This trend is also due to increasing manufacturing activities in Taiwan by itself. Taiwan's manufacturing sector expanded for 10th consecutive month in December, 2016, according to the the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER).