busaboy

Hi all, I have just joined this site & hope to find information on moving to Penang with my wife from the UK, I will list my needs as I see them but welcome any information that may help with our decision on moving to Penang/Malaysia.

Safe, Good healthcare, all year sunshine, able to buy a small business & work in it, enjoy being part of the local community.

I have just returned from Asia on holiday again (We go there most years) this time we travelled through Thailand & went to Cambodia to look at buying a business there but didn't really see a future there for us, so that is now off our list.

I have just been reading a log where I got redirected to a site about retiring in Penang & reading on from there I read that I could purchase my own business & own it 100% (something I couldn't do in other parts of Asia.
So if anyone can confirm any of the above or tell me that it is not true then I would appreciate it very much.

P.S. we would be happy looking at other areas of Malaysia so long as it meets our requirements.

Regards
Paul & MAndy

Jerseygirl

Welcome to BE. I have moved your thread over to our Malaysia forum...hopefully the regulars of that forum will be able to help you.

Bluenose1

Hi Paul and MAndy, and to BE and in particular to the Malaysia forum. How certain are you about the information you received? What sort of business are you intending? The last I heard was that if you set up your own business, you could not own it 100% and you needed to have a Malaysian Partner - in fact, I think at one time you had to have 2 Malaysians plus yourself. I do know that a lot of rules have been changed, and some are more relaxed, so I do not know if they have relaxed the ownership rule or not. Actually, I am hoping to set up my own photography business, but if I need to, I can set it up in my (Malay) wife's name and, if necessary, have another member of her family as a partner. I am here on the LTSVP visa at the moment, and will be looking at applying for PR once I have spent sufficient qualifying years here. Whether PR will change my status as regards business ownership or not I don't know either.

Kebi, who lives in Penang is very knowledgeable and he may be able to provide more up-to-date information. Hopefully he will be along soon! Good luck.

busaboy

Hi Jersygirl, Thank you very much for your help.

Paul & Mandy

bakedbean

Hi and welcome to the forum from me also

There's a guy called Abdul who set up in business in Malaysia and has written a fair bit about it on here. If you have a search through this section, you should be able to find his posts.

As Bluenose said, Kebi is also a good source of info so hopefully he'll be along soon to assist.

On your other questions:

Safe? Well as safe as anywhere. Just take normal precautions that you would in other places. It's not crime free.

Good healthcare? Yes I would say so.

All year sunshine? Err no . This time of year is quite sunny. It's hot and humid all year round. Penang gets the south west monsoon but it doesn't impact as much as some places like Thailand for instance since we are somewhat sheltered by Sumatra. On the flip side, we sometimes get haze from Sumatra at certain times of the year.

busaboy

Hi BB Thank you for the reply, I thought things were not going to be easy, I've looked at Thailand & recently Cambodia but it seems to be the same all over Asia, as for the type of business I am not really bothered maybe a bar or guesthouse or shop, anything that I could buy & run but also employing locals to help hence helping with unemployment maybe.

Regards
Paul & Mandy

Bluenose1

Unemployment? Ha! I have no idea what unemployment is like here - I have seen so many odd-jobbers. Unbelievable number of food hawker stalls as well.

I don't know what the rest of Malaysia is like, but here in Melaka the number of housing developments and shop-lot developments that spring up are unbelievable - so many being built, and so many hundreds, if not thousands of both types just lying empty. I have commented on numerous occasions that these builders just seem to be building to keep unemployment low. The builders must be making money out of it somehow, so I can only assume they are heavily subsidised by the government. Most of the labourers seem to be from Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar or Vietnam as far as I can tell, so it's not even indigenous Malays who are benefitting from it.

roystevenung

Hi Paul, my expat friend from the US has a cafe business up for sale as he is returning to Tanzania (US citizen from Tanzania) to look after his chain cafe business.

If you are interested, I could PM to you his number and you can talk to him directly.

kebi

As a foreigner you have two possibilities to incorporate a company in Malaysia legally.

1) For 100% foreign own companies the company needs a paid up capital of RM 500k for an advisory business and RM 1 Mio for import, export, restaurant and trading. Manufacturing companies should apply through MIDA and the paid up capital will be determined on technology and export rate. There are another 27 service sectors with no equity condition but might need approval from the relevant authorities.

2) Joint venture with Malaysian partner who holds 51% equity with a minimum paid up capital of RM 350k.

If you incorporate 100% foreign owned company you can also apply for a work permit which is quite useful if you want to control and participate in the success of your company. Depending on the monthly salary (min. RM 5k) you can apply for two to three years or you might be even able to apply for a key post for your company (10 years). These regulations change quite frequently and it would go too far to explain all in details. Usually you can get a good advice on how to handle it from an international audit company.

Being married to a Malaysian citizen and residing on a spouse visa in Malaysia you are allowed to work nearly anywhere for any salary (some posts are not allowed to foreigners i.e. food taster). You just need to submit you employment offer/agreement with some other documents to a state immigration office.

Please note that under MM2H you are not allowed to work (even in your own company) unless you have an approval to work for 20 hours a week. Unfortunately up to now nobody could share any experience about the procedures to get it.

bakedbean

Great info Kebi

JC3

There's some more basic information on this here that may help:

http://malaysiabizadvisory.com/incor...mpany-sdn-bhd/

JC3

t34b4g

We're interested in setting up a small sandwich/bakery business in Malaysia, and looking at 100% foreign ownership. It seems that the best way for us, is to start with a place within a hotel complex as it doesn't seem to require such a high amount of paid up capital to start the business.

Has anybody on this forum done this, and if so, can you share some tips on how the process works?

We'd appreciate any help from those who have been down this path already.

Thanks.

kebi

Before you start your bakery I would have a few questions.
Why a bakery – aren’t there are hundreds of them?
Why in a hotel – because they don’t have one or not even a supplier?
Why does the RM 500 k minimum investment does not apply to you?

t34b4g

Hi Kebi,

Please understand that we're in the early stages of getting our business plan together, and the bakery side may/may not come to fruition.

I'm surprised you've asked the questions about being in a hotel and the initial investment because you mentioned it in your earlier post.

There are another 27 service sectors with no equity condition but might need approval from the relevant authorities.

If you have any information that could help us, we'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

JC3

Hi,

This article, Setting Up Shop in Business Friendly Malaysia, may be helpful to you:

http://internationalliving.com/2013/...ndly-malaysia/

JC3