KUALA LUMPUR: Sea Ltd, a leading Singaporean global consumer internet company, has committed to expanding its investments in Malaysia through its e-commerce platform Shopee.
Sea had planned to create more than 2,000 jobs in the process, International Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said.
Sea operates three core businesses across digital entertainment, e-commerce, as well as digital payments and financial services known as Garena, Shopee and SeaMoney.
Shopee is the largest pan-regional e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
Tengku Zafrul shared this during his visit to Sea in Singapore, where Shopee's headquarters is also located.
The minister's three-day investment mission is in conjunction with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's first official visit to Singapore on Monday.
Tengku Zafrul said as one of the country's top foreign direct investment (FDI) sources, Anwar and his working visits to Singapore were of paramount importance to Malaysia's continuous efforts to attract high quality FDIs.
Sea's proposed expansion plans in Malaysia will involve the setting up of cloud services, data hosting and processing, as well as a new logistics e-commerce warehouse.
The cloud computing project will be located in a three-story green facility in Kulai, Johor, with 24 data hall suites, M&E rooms, office space, as well as storage and parking facilities.
It is targeted to be completed by the first quarter of 2024.
Additionally, its Shopee e-commerce platform will also expand its footprint in Malaysia through a newly-constructed mega warehouse located at Bukit Raja, Klang.
The two-storey, 1.4-million square-foot warehouse is an integrated hi-tech logistics park equipped with cloud infrastructure.
"The warehouse will be among the biggest logistics warehouses in Malaysia," Tengku Zafrul said.
"Sea's decision to expand its investment footprint in Malaysia clearly reflects its confidence in the prospects, as well as the operational and policy stability of Malaysia's business landscape.
"We are also expecting positive spill over effects for our SMEs, corporates and the surrounding local communities. This includes local sourcing, vendor development and the strengthening of local industrial ecosystem particularly in the digital space" he added.
To date, Singapore is the second largest investor in the manufacturing sector in Malaysia with a total of 3,475 manufacturing projects in operation with investment amounting to RM96.36 billion or US$25.4 billion.