Johor Petroleum Development Corp Bhd (JPDC) is focusing on investors from China, Japan and South Korea to invest in petrochemicalrelated industries in the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC).

CEO Mohd Yazid Ja’afar said the PIPC project, which would generate billions of ringgit in investments, is expected to be operational in 2019.

“However, the Chinese investors that we are focusing on are those in the second tier, not the first tier.

“The first tier consists of big companies that have ventured into the US market and others…the second tier investors are already big to us,” he said to reporters after the signing of memoranda of under s t anding (MoUs) between JPDC and four agencies in Johor Baru on late Wednesday.

He said focus is on the three countries as they have high technology that could be shared with local companies.

Meanwhile, the four agencies involved in the MoUs are Bumiputera Agenda Steering Unit (Teraju) of the Prime Minister’s Department, SME Corp Malaysia, Credit Guarantee Corp Malaysia Bhd (CGC) and SME Bank Malaysia Bhd.

Present to witness the event was State Public Works, Rural and Regional Development Committee chairman Datuk Hasni Mohammad whi le Teraju was represented by its CEO Datuk Husni Salleh, SME Bank by its group MD Datuk Mohd Radzif Mohd Yunus, CGC by its president and CEO Mohd Zamree Ishak and SME Corp by its deputy CEO Rizal Nainy.

Mohd Yazid said the MoUs aim to provide financing facilities to small Bumiputera entrepreneurs to help them start a business or as additional capital to expand their respective businesses.

However, the funding allocation for this purpose has not been finalised, he said.

“Our focus is for the Pengerang areas and to date, we have identified over 490 entrepreneurs, some of whom had been given training last year,” he said.

He said the entrepreneurs would be involved in supporting services industry such as hair salon, retail and laundry to support the presence of the oil and gas industries in Pengerang. — Bernama