KUALA LUMPUR: Investors in Malaysia should be assessed on the quality of jobs they create and how they treat workers, particularly women, said Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) chairman Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz.
He said fair wages, safe workplaces and flexible working arrangements should be key criteria for quality investments.
“The investors we welcome to Malaysia should be judged by how they treat the women who work for them. Good jobs, fair pay, safe workplaces and flexible work.
“These are not favours. They are the new standard of a quality investment,” he said in his keynote address at the Annual Women Economic Forum and G100 Global Meet 2026 here today.
Citing McKinsey research, Tengku Zafrul said advancing women’s equality could add US$4.5 trillion (RM18.3 trillion) annually to Asia-Pacific economies, with Malaysia potentially gaining about US$50 billion a year, equivalent to roughly eight per cent of its gross domestic product.
He said greater workforce participation by women, alongside equal access to capital and markets for women entrepreneurs, would expand the economy’s productive capacity.
“When more women enter and remain in the workforce, women entrepreneurs have equal access to capital and markets, and talented women can rise into senior leadership, we expand the productive capacity of the entire economy.
“We enlarge the pool of ideas, skills and enterprise from which growth is created,” he said.
He noted that Malaysia’s female labour force participation rate reached a record 56.6% at the end of 2025, but many women left the workforce after graduation because of inadequate childcare support and caregiving responsibilities.
He said women often had to balance their careers with caring for children and ageing parents, highlighting the need to address these barriers to enable more women to remain economically active.
Tengku Zafrul said empowering women was essential to unlocking Malaysia’s economic potential, particularly as countries competed for talent, productivity and innovation.
“In a world where every country is competing for talent, productivity and innovation, leaving women behind is not simply unjust, it is economically irrational,” he said.