Statement by Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Seri

In my humble opinion, Tun Dr Mahathir have to remind his Pakatan colleagues that on 26th April 2005, he made the statement that the EPF should invest more of its funds overseas so that the members can get better dividends.

Here is the news to remind him http://tinyurl.com/epf-DrM

2. At that time, he said that EPF had a huge fund size of RM240 billion and that investing it all locally will mean low returns. He added that EPF must invest overseas in order to increase its income.

3. Today, as at the end of June 2017, EPF's fund size has reached RM759.78 billion - more than three folds of what it was when Tun Mahathir made that statement.

4. As EPF had clarified, overseas investments, or 29% of its total investment asset, contributed 32.5% to the total investment income in Q2 2017.

5. Overseas investments had also given an annualised return on investment (ROI) of 11.10% as at June 2017 - significantly outperforming EPF's local investments.

6. I am suprised to know how Tun now change his mind and position in criticizing Khazanah and the EPF's investments in the USA shows he is playing hate politics while disregarding the welfare and interests of the people.

7. Investing overseas is nothing new for both Khazanah and EPF. Khazanah had opened its office in the Silicon Valley, USA in 2013

8. In 2014, Khazanah made more than USD1 billion in the USA listing of Alibaba - a five-fold return for their investment. Much of funds for their current US$400 million investments in technology firms in the USA have come from the Alibaba profits.

9. EPF had also recorded big successes in investing in infrastructure projects overseas. In the year 2013, EPF together with other Government-linked companies Sime Darby and SP Setia, whose major shareholder is PNB, took up the multi-billion pounds project to develop the landmark Battersea project in London.

10. The Battersea project has turned out to be an unqualified project that will mean many billions of pounds profits for our companies.

11. I am sure Tun and Pakatan must not second-guess the investment decisions of the professional managers of our funds as they have had excellent track records in overseas investments.

12. Their success has meant that ordinary Malaysians have benefited from their decision to invest overseas. Is it wrong for the funds to seek out the best investments -- whether locally or overseas -- that will maximise returns for the savings of the ordinary Malaysians

Bernama : Source