KUALA LUMPUR, 22 September 2025 — Malaysia’s Deputy Investment, Trade and Industry Minister, Liew Chin Tong, has called for a paradigm shift in ASEAN’s economic development strategy, warning that the region’s long reliance on foreign direct investment (FDI) and export-led industrialisation may no longer be sufficient in a rapidly changing global landscape. At the ASEAN Conference 2025 in Singapore, he urged ASEAN member states to foster local technology-driven multinationals that can compete globally and help build a more resilient regional economy.
Speaking during a ministerial dialogue session, Liew outlined his vision of ASEAN 2045 not simply as a bloc of export hubs, but as a home to its own versions of global leaders like Samsung or Huawei. He stressed that while SMEs have often been the focus of policy support, there is a glaring gap in how much effort has been invested in developing home-grown tech champions—firms that can scale, innovate, and export from ASEAN itself rather than simply serving as nodes in global supply chains.
Liew emphasised that most ASEAN economies, apart from Indonesia, are too small in isolation to mount robust industrial or technology policies alone. He proposed greater regional cooperation, supply chain integration across borders, and capital market reform to enable ASEAN firms to access the scale, investment, and capabilities needed to contend at the global level. He noted that ASEAN is at a moment of both opportunity and vulnerability: global geopolitical realignments, protectionism, and supply chain disruptions are making FDI less predictable, thus compelling the region to lean more heavily on internal strengths.
To make this future plausible, Liew also pointed to concrete institutional steps. He highlighted the recent memorandum of understanding among United Overseas Bank, the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers, and the Singapore Manufacturing Federation as a timely model of cross-border collaboration. Such partnerships, he argued, must extend beyond policy rhetoric to include deeper investment in research and development, innovation ecosystems, and credit access for scalable tech enterprises.
Investor Angle
From an investor perspective, Liew’s propositions open both challenges and opportunity. A move toward home-grown tech multinationals implies potential for higher long-term returns: firms that succeed in scaling and exporting will likely benefit from premium valuations and less vulnerability to foreign policy risk. Sectors such as semiconductors, high-technology manufacturing, software, AI, clean tech, and digital services are likely to be in focus, especially those able to serve both regional and global markets.
However, the path to creating such tech-giants is capital intensive and fraught with risk. Innovation requires sustained investment in R&D, human capital, infrastructure, and regulatory frameworks. Investors will want clarity on how governments plan to support domestic firms—through tax incentives, grants, protection of intellectual property, and ease of regulation. Competitive pressure from already established multinationals will be high. Much will depend on execution: how well ASEAN economies align policies, deal with inter-country friction, and deliver the ecosystem support needed for tech firms to scale.
