E&E players urged to grab opportunities
PETALING JAYA: The electrical and electronics (E&E) sector should seize the opportunities arising from the United States-China trade war to grow the industry, said National ICT Association of Malaysia (Pikom).
Its chairman Ganesh Kumar Bangah said as in any trade wars, there were opportunities that should not be missed, especially in terms of investments.
“So, we need to have concerted efforts to attract foreign investments into the country,” he said at the unveiling of a rebranded Outsourcing Malaysia (OM), here, yesterday.
OM is an initiative of the global business services industry and a chapter of Pikom.
Ganesh said as a result of the technology war, Apple was seeking a country to host its new manufacturing facility outside China, with Malaysia being one of the potential countries.
According to Nomura Global Markets Research, Malaysia is the fourth-largest beneficiary of the trade diversion. The research firm also identified Vietnam, Taiwan, Chile and Argentina as among the beneficiaries of the trade diversion.
OM chairman Cheak Kok Hoong called on the government to collaborate with Asean member countries to bring more investments into the region.
“There are things Asean governments need to look at, mainly policies which involve working permits and visa, so that we can further increase the ease of doing business in the region.”
Cheah also said Malaysia’s global business services outlook stood at around US$7 billion (RM28 billion), up from OM’s previous projection of US$4.7 billion.
“Multinational companies like to bring investments into Malaysia because the cost of arbitrage here is low, on top of our infrastructure, network connectivity, multilingual (societies) and government incentives.”