Malaysia is seeking chip deals with Brazil and India, the government has said, issuing a stark warning that the US market may be lost to the country’s exporters.
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As tariff-pummelled Southeast Asian nations scour for new, friendlier markets, the Brics grouping, founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and now representing about 40 per cent of global output, has come into focus.
Like Asean, the bloc is seeking new trade alliances to soothe its own mauling by American tariffs, as global commerce finds new pathways to operate with US protectionism biting into supply chains.
“We have to accept the fact that our dependence on the US as an export destination may one day end,” Malaysia’s deputy trade minister Liew Chin Tong told parliament on Monday.
“The US now does not want to import much from our country and Asean nations. So we need new markets, we need new partners,” Liew added, referring to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Malaysia was poised to sign a memorandum of cooperation with Brazil to collaborate on semiconductor development, and was pursuing a similar deal with India, Liew said, but did not elaborate.
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As more nations seek to break into the US-led club of high-end chip manufacturing, experts have said that could include sharing Malaysia’s expertise in intermediate semiconductor assembly and tapping India’s deep pool of tech experts in related areas such as integrated circuit design.