Unlock the Editor’s Digest free of charge
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly publication.
Chinese language chipmakers and expertise corporations are heading to Malaysia in droves, its financial system minister Rafizi Ramli mentioned, as Beijing prepares to face extra tariffs when Donald Trump returns as US president this month.
The strikes by Chinese language corporations, that are anticipated to end in billions of {dollars} of funding in Malaysia within the coming years, would rival the US corporations which have dominated the nation’s market, he mentioned.
“Chinese [companies] are very keen to go outside and expand beyond their domestic market,” Rafizi instructed the Monetary Instances in an interview. “Those companies are now looking at relocating or expanding into Malaysia.”
Trump has threatened to impose 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese language imports when he re-enters the White Home on January 20, rattling traders and placing corporations on alert to restructure their provide chains.
Malaysia has been a large beneficiary over the previous decade of such “China-plus-one” methods, the place multinational corporations complement their Chinese language operations with investments in regional nations to diversify threat and decrease prices.
It has additionally positioned itself as an important participant in world provide chains for high-tech industries akin to synthetic intelligence, with long-standing semiconductor manufacturing operations in Penang within the north and a burgeoning hub for knowledge centres within the southern state of Johor.
US corporations have dominated these sectors in Malaysia, however Rafizi mentioned he anticipated a wave of Chinese language funding on the again of initiatives his authorities was putting in to develop the industries additional.
Joe Biden’s administration has restricted gross sales of superior chips by US corporations to China, posing a possible menace to their investments in Malaysia, the place lots of the merchandise are manufactured, and opening the door for Chinese language opponents.
Rafizi mentioned he made a 10-day journey in June to China, the place he met 100 AI, tech and biomedical corporations to evaluate their urge for food for investing in Malaysia. He added that these efforts had resulted in two funding delegations from China up to now few months.
“Chinese investments usually come with their own ecosystem,” he mentioned. “We will be seeing more and more, especially if we can secure the first two or three anchor investors from China.”
He added that many corporations had been additionally searching for to extend publicity to the fast-growing south-east Asian market as China’s financial momentum slows and commerce with the US faces further limitations.
This week, Malaysia signed an settlement with Singapore to create an unlimited particular financial zone between the 2 nations. Malaysia hopes the initiative will add $26bn a yr to its financial system by 2030, bringing in 20,000 expert jobs and 50 new tasks.
Between 2019 and 2023, Malaysia attracted $21bn of funding into its semiconductor business and $10bn into knowledge centres — the storage amenities that allow fast-growing applied sciences akin to AI, cloud computing and cryptocurrency mining. Prior to now yr alone, US tech corporations Amazon, Nvidia, Google and Microsoft dedicated almost $16bn, principally for knowledge centres in Johor.
TikTok proprietor ByteDance is the biggest Chinese language group to spend money on Johor, with a $2bn dedication final yr.
Rafizi mentioned that whereas traditionally, Malaysia had been blissful to just accept any international funding, it was turning into extra selective because it sought to contribute extra worth to the services and products it produced.
He added that whereas rising US-China tensions would hurt world commerce, it might immediate Chinese language corporations to present Malaysia a much bigger function in chip design, fairly than simply manufacturing, which might generate extra earnings because the nation climbed the worth chain.
“The unintended consequence of some tariff measures targeted at Chinese companies basically helps countries like Malaysia to weed out the more genuine and long-term investments from China compared to the ones that just look to use Malaysia as a manufacturing outpost,” he mentioned.
