He said Penang’s position in the supply chain can help navigate through the concerns about tariffs and strict auditing measures targeting China.
“Industry players are optimistic. Even with Trump’s victory, they feel that Malaysia will still be able to benefit from their (US) policies,” Chow told reporters at an event here.
He said upcoming harsher tariffs by the US may push companies to move operations from China to Southeast Asia, including Malaysia.
However, Chow said strict origin audits and tracking may affect Malaysian exports if they are linked to Chinese ownership.
“These audits can trace the origin of exports. They may also check the ownership of the company.
“So even if the company is registered in Malaysia, it will be checked for Chinese ownership,” he said.
Chow said Malaysia’s neutral political position is also an important factor in drawing investors and fending off negative effects from tariffs.
“We are a neutral country, so we hope our political position will make us stand above all this competition and we’ll continue to benefit from increased investment and trade,” he said.
Earlier, Chow visited Shan Poornam Metals Sdn Bhd here for the launch of its 2023 Sustainability and Greenhouse Gas Report. He also broke ground for their centralised labour quarters project.
Shan Poornam is wholly owned by Cenviro Sdn Bhd, a company majority-owned by Khazanah Nasional Berhad.
Known as the “Silicon Valley of the East”, Penang is home to major US semiconductor companies like Intel, Broadcom and Micron, and has recently attracted Chinese firms.
In April, three Chinese companies – China Wafer Level CSP Co, Ningbo SJ Electronics Co and Wuxi AMTE Inc – announced plans to invest a total of US$100 million (RM440million) in Penang.
Chinese companies that have already set up shop in Penang include TongFu Microelectronics, partnering with AMD for a packaging and testing facility; StarFive Technology, which is building a RISC-V design facility; and xFusion, working with local company NationGate to produce GPU servers.