The company’s founder and president of global sales and marketing, Stanley Thai, said the accelerating tariffs war had created a trade diversion to Asian countries, and Malaysia “will be major beneficiary”.

Speaking to reporters at Supermax’s fourth quarter briefing here today, Thai said the trade war augured well for the company’s capacity expansion and growth in the US.

“This is because the US had imposed tariffs for medical gloves from China by 15% from Sept 1, and industrial gloves by 25% effective Jan 1,” he said.

“Basically, import of gloves from China to the US is completely shut and this will increase our market there by 10%,” he said, adding that demand from US importers would go up.

Thai said the trade war had disrupted the global supply chain and would continue until the next US presidential elections in November 2020.

On Brexit, Thai said Supermax had a substantial investment in the United Kingdom and “we will have to mitigate the risks”.

“We will be doing currency hedging between the pound and ringgit, but I know the British pound will remain great,” he said.

He said although there was volatility in the currency market, including the weak ringgit, he was optimistic that the US dollar would strengthen and “we will do whatever necessary to protect our margins, especially on the operational side”.

Supermax owns 11 factories, manufacturing various types of latex and nitrile gloves, in Malaysia.

Thai said the company planned to increase its total production capacity to 25% by 2020 after the rebuilding and replacement of older and less efficient production lines.

He said the production capacity would be further increased by 61% by 2024 with the construction of a new factory in Meru, Klang.

This capacity increase will see 55% catering to the medical and hospital markets, 35% to dental and laboratory, and 10% to automotive, food, beauty and nursing homes.