Malaysia's Tech Boom Will Withstand US Vote Ripples: Trade Minister

Published: Sep 12, 2024 Duration: 00:05:25 Category: News & Politics

Tags : trade tech Technology U.S. Aerospace China malaysia economy government semiconductors U.S. government chips Haidi Stroud-Watts Shery Ahn commodities Chemicals FTA Free Trade Agreements Malaysian economy Malaysian government Zafrul Aziz petrochemicals

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[CC may contain inaccuracies] I just want to start asking you about this whole tech sector and the semiconductor side of things, because we continue to see, of course, the geopolitical tensions building up between the U.S. and China. Is this having any impact on your economy, on how you operate in this sector? All right. Well, thank you, Sherry. Well, we know as we navigate through this tech war, I mean, it's a global trade war, but it's really to me, the challenges are facing the tech industry. But that we've seen and we're talking to companies and companies are telling us that they are realigning and redesigning the supply chain. And so as a result, we've seen more investments coming to the region. Malaysia, of course, has been the beneficiary of that. And Malaysia has been an industry in this industry for more than 50 years. Have we built a strong ecosystem around the semiconductor industry and has been a major part of our exports? So to me, when we see what's happening today, many companies in Malaysia, both Malaysian companies and international companies in Malaysia, are seeing better results as a result. Could that change depending on how the US elections unfold in November? Well, honestly, when I see what has happened in the last five years, even during the change from Trump to Biden, we don't see major changes in this sector. Families are families and companies and also for the international companies based in Malaysia. And I don't foresee that continues to change when there is a new if there is a new policy change in the new US administration. The US has been stepping up curbs when it comes to Chinese chipmakers. Has that affected Malaysia and how do you try and navigate this? Yes, well, to date it has not affected. What's key is we continue to engage both China and us. Of course, Malaysia is a very open economy and we are parties to many multilateral and bilateral efforts with many nations around the world. So the key is to continue to engage. To date, we have not seen any tariff being imposed on companies based in Malaysia, in the chip or in the semiconductor sector. Perhaps one of the challenges is building up a skilled workforce. What are the strategies to counter some of the concerns that Malaysia doesn't have that adequate workforce to be able to realise these investment ambitions? I think you're right. One of the major challenge in for the industry and this is not just for Malaysia, but also globally, is talent. The talent pool required for the growing semiconductor industry has been quite demanding. So for Malaysia, we have been working very closely with industry. We have programs such as Academy in industry, so basically work based learning program where we work closely with academia and industry. Do we have a skill set of being upgraded or we have reskilling as well? So we basically the course where employees will get paid. And after that will get up and running jobs with the companies. But what's important is with killing people according to the needs of the industry. Minister, of course, you are in Hong Kong right now for major events, including Invest Malaysia, including Belt and Road initiatives as well. Tell us a little bit about what sort of companies globally you're targeting for them to come over to Malaysia and how far along are the conversations in these negotiations to bring them to your country and anything exciting that you could disclose today? Well, I've been meeting investors, both capital market investors, as well as FDI investors. We are talking about various sectors that they are interested in. And we, of course, have been focusing on five key sectors that we want companies to come to Malaysia and invest in Malaysia, especially in the digital green sector. We are looking at five key sectors. As I mentioned, we are looking at the energy sector, the digital economy sector, chemical, petrochemical healthcare especially, or medical devices and pharmaceutical as well as the aerospace industry. So these are the five sectors that we've been talking to the investors in in in Hong Kong business income. So that's some diversification there, I think. How important is it, do you think, for Malaysia to be able to not have all its eggs in the basket given the questions over overinvestment and, you know, the correlated returns? Is that a concern, do you think? Well, that's why if you look at where we are today, you know, we do it not just focusing on any particularly semiconductor. I mentioned that we also in various other spaces that we have focused focusing on today, aerospace and and chemical petrochemical. We pulled out of the five that I mentioned earlier. We we have a very diversified economy. We have a commodity based economy as well. Still strong. I mean, 20% of our exports is commodities and the other 80% is in the manufacturing and services sector.

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