Wee Ka Siong has stood firm with his cabotage policy, saying that Malaysia did not lose out on foreign investments as claimed by certain quarters.

The transport minister and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng were tonight engaged in a debate over the cabotage policy.

This was following Lim’s accusation on October 11 that Wee had misled Parliament after former MDEC chairman Rais Hussin claimed the decision to revoke the cabotage policy had led to a loss of undersea cable projects which could have brought in foreign investments worth up to RM15 billion.

Wee dismissed claims that he was the cause for Malaysia losing foreign investments.

He said he had a meeting with Orient Link’s chief executive officer Yoshio Sato who is in charge of the US$300 million (RM1.2 billion) Apricot subsea cable project which involves the construction of a new 12,000km subsea cable system that will connect Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan and Guam.

Wee then showed a video conversation with Yoshio who said that there are plans to connect Japan, Philippines that leads to Kuching in Malaysia, which he is considering.

“Apricot has new plans to bring the IntraAsia Cable Express to Sabah and Sarawak.

“Does this not benefit Malaysia? That’s why MOT (Ministry of Transport) is called to bring investments in.

“So don’t accuse MOT of trying to stifle investments,” Wee said.

Lim said that he was perplexed when Wee said that he was not stifling investments.

“I’m surprised because the information that was given was not from DAP or the opposition but from Rais, who was a former government man.

“If you can’t believe government personnel, then who can you believe? What is important is not who will win the debate but how we can restore investor confidence,” Lim said.

Lim, who was former finance minister, also cited a recent study by think tank MIDF Research, which estimated that the country stood to lose RM1.7 billion in investments after being excluded from the Apricot subsea cable project.

The cabotage exemption was first introduced by then transport minister Anthony Loke during the Pakatan Harapan administration.

It was made for submarine cable repair vessels in March 2019, after complaints of undersea cable repair delays by the tech giants.

Wee reversed the exemption in November last year. – November 2, 2021.