Malaysia targets quality investments, complex products to boost trade growth

Malaysia is focusing on attracting quality investments and manufacturing more complex products to manage risks to trade growth, according to Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz. He emphasised the importance of creating an environment that attracts the right kind of investments, fostering industrial development, and producing products with higher complexity scores.

Tengku Zafrul said, “It is only when we have created a virtuous cycle between those three key elements of our economy that we can claim ourselves to be pro-industry, pro-investment and pro-trade. And it is only then that we can create higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs for our small and medium enterprises and our rakyat.”

The minister unveiled the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) Digital Trade Platform (MDTP) as part of the country’s efforts to support trade and investment. He noted that both trade and investment are essential components of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product growth.

Tengku Zafrul acknowledged the various downside risks this year, including geopolitical tensions, food insecurity, potential financial instability stemming from monetary policy tightening, and increasing debt levels. To address these challenges, he highlighted the need for Malaysia to produce more complex and sophisticated products for exports, facilitated by digitisation, automation, robotics, and other tech-based enablers.

“In a nutshell, a country’s economic and industrial products’ complexity is important as predictors of our nation’s future growth because they reflect the level of our knowledge development and accumulation,” he said.