Asean countries must embrace their role as middle powers to capitalise on investment opportunities amid ongoing geopolitical shifts, said Investment, Trade, and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz.
Speaking to the media at the Asean-Malaysia Business Forum 2024 on Monday (Dec 9), Tengku Zafrul underscored the importance of maintaining Asean centrality to address industry concerns and position the region as a neutral yet influential player in the global arena.
Regarding concerns over the impact of United States tariffs on Asean exports, including those from Malaysia, Tengku Zafrul acknowledged the challenges and stressed the need for proactive engagement and strategic planning.
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Speaking to the media at the Asean-Malaysia Business Forum 2024 on Monday (Dec 9), Tengku Zafrul underscored the importance of maintaining Asean centrality to address industry concerns and position the region as a neutral yet influential player in the global arena.
Regarding concerns over the impact of United States tariffs on Asean exports, including those from Malaysia, Tengku Zafrul acknowledged the challenges and stressed the need for proactive engagement and strategic planning.
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
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NewsTranscript
00:00YB, you mentioned that the third strategic trust is ASEAN Central Local Supply Chain.
00:05What's the outlook there? Because there's crackdown and everything, it's all that's going on.
00:09So how can we navigate that with ASEAN as a platform and everything?
00:30Some of the concerns by industry. So we have always been successful in navigating to ensure that ASEAN continues to be a region that is non-aligned.
00:41And we are always together in our positioning of ASEAN as an area where it is conducive and safe to build your investment.
00:52Especially when companies all over the world are re-looking at realigning their supply chain because of the geopolitics that you mentioned.
01:01And ASEAN should take this opportunity to position ourselves to capture opportunities for investments to come into ASEAN.
01:16Already the last three years, investments or FDI into ASEAN has shown positive growth against the backdrop of a negative FDI globally.
01:24YB, I just want to ask. You said ASEAN would be a neutral base, but given that the US is having a crackdown on exports and stuff,
01:33so how can we maintain neutrality with all the ongoing tariffs and measures within even ASEAN?
01:39Yeah, but neutral doesn't mean we have a position. The tariff is not about us not being neutral or of us being neutral.
01:51The tariff is on issues which we can then engage. There are views that maybe it is obviously for domestic purposes.
02:01Maybe US have their own views about how tariff can help their industries, how tariff can stop unfair competition, etc.
02:13So that is not about being neutral or not being neutral. It's about economics, right?
02:17So here, Malaysia and the region date to engage the US or any other countries that impose tariff to explain why this tariff is not fair.
02:28And if it's fair, we need to then look at how we can ensure that our industries remain competitive.