Penang will chase RM10 billion in fresh manufacturing investment in 2027, after approving RM17.32 billion worth of manufacturing projects in the first six months of this year.
The target belongs to InvestPenang, the state’s investment promotion agency, and surfaced in the 2027 state budget papers. The same documents list 177 approved manufacturing projects for January to June, split into RM12.83 billion of foreign direct investment and RM4.49 billion of domestic investment, with 19,337 jobs expected to follow, Pocket News reported.
Those first-half numbers are MIDA’s, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority having cleared the projects before the budget speech restated them. The sitting on 30 October added two things: a spending plan for next year, and a bar for investment to clear.
Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow tabled a RM1.074 billion budget for 2027 against projected revenue of RM1.069 billion, leaving a deficit of RM5.62 million. That is the smallest gap in the state’s fiscal history and well below the RM19.92 million projected for 2026. Development spending falls 12.1 per cent to RM280.17 million across 514 projects, with land acquisition for the Mutiara Line LRT and access roads to Silicon Island listed as priorities, The Star noted.
The investment push sits on an economy that grew 7.3 per cent in 2025 to a gross domestic product of RM130.3 billion, ahead of national growth of 5.2 per cent. Manufacturing supplied 47.3 per cent of that output and services 46.7 per cent. September exports reached RM113.2 billion, up 96.2 per cent from a year earlier and roughly 52.6 per cent of Malaysia’s total, according to Buletin Mutiara, the state government’s news portal.
Fiscal housekeeping runs alongside. Revenue from January to 30 October stood at RM847.53 million, or 79.35 per cent of the RM1.068 billion target. Operating spending next year is trimmed 1.24 per cent to RM1.042 billion, and a higher wage floor from June 2027, when the minimum moves from RM1,700 to RM2,000, will raise contract costs for cleaning, maintenance and security services.
The job figure needs time. An approved project still has to build its plant, fit out the line and hire before any of the 19,337 positions appears on a payroll. The 177 projects are approvals on paper, not factories already running.
Set against this year, RM10 billion is a lower bar: about 58 per cent of what the state banked in six months. A full-year target that trails a half-year haul points to a plan built on slower numbers for next year, with electronics and machinery carrying the load.
