Selamat pagi, salam sejahtera dan salam Malaysia MADANI.
YB Ng Sze Han
Selangor State Executive Councillor for Investment, Trade and Mobility
Dato’ Ts. Saipolyazan M Yusop
Chief Executive Officer, Menteri Besar Incorporated (MBI)
Mr Hanif Ghulam Mohammed
Chief Executive Officer, Affin Hwang Investment Bank Berhad
Mr Yong Kai Ping
Chief Executive Officer, Selangor Information Technology & Digital Economy Corporation (Sidec)
Distinguished delegates, industry leaders, investors, students, ladies and gentlemen. OPENING AND APPRECIATION
- Thank you for having me this morning. My thanks to the Selangor State Government and Sidec for organising AiSEM@Selangor, and to AFFIN Group for supporting it.
- This is the 11th edition of an event many of you know as SDEC. The new name says something. It puts AI and semiconductors side by side, and that’s exactly where they belong.
- Every conversation about AI eventually comes back to chips. The models we hear about every day run on hardware that someone has to design, make, test and package. Countries that can do that work will shape how AI develops. Countries that can’t will simply buy it.
- Malaysia has been part of the semiconductor story for more than 50 years. Today we handle about 13% of the world’s chip assembly, testing and packaging. That’s a real foundation. But the question for the next decade isn’t whether we stay in the industry. It’s which part of the value chain we choose to own.
- That’s what this conference is about, and I’m glad to be here at its launch. THE FEDERAL COMMITMENT
Ladies and gentlemen,
- When Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim launched the National Semiconductor Strategy (NSS) in 2024, the government put RM25 billion in fiscal support behind it. The goal is to attract at least RM500 billion in investment and train 60,000 high-skilled Malaysian engineers.
- I was then the Deputy MITI Minister and had the opportunity to help develop the policy as Malaysia embarked on a national semiconductor journey.
- At that point of time, we were looking at how to deal with a changed world. We knew that Malaysia has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rise, and the key lies within our semiconductor industry.
- To ensure the success of NSS, we need a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to look at this important sector.
- For many years, Malaysia has been dependent on foreign capital, serving as an outsourced manufacturing site. This is “Made in Malaysia”. We have been capturing an indispensable middle in the global value chain.
- Via the NSS, we would like to see a more robust rethinking and connecting the dots between the Malaysian capital market and semiconductor industry so that the semiconductor industry is not just foreign-owned and not just doing outsourced manufacturing.
- This is why Budget 2027 emphasizes on “Made by Malaysia”.
- As the Prime Minister announced in his speech, there will be a strategic fund – a collaboration between Khazanah and the government.
- Budget 2027, tabled last Friday, puts that into practice. Khazanah and KWAP will invest RM1.2 billion to help Malaysian semiconductor companies move into higher-value work.
- Part of that is a new RM150 million National Strategic Investment Fund, with Khazanah, Penang and Selangor each putting in RM50 million. I want to acknowledge the Selangor State Government, and YB Ng, for committing so quickly. It’s a good example of the federal government and the states pulling in the same direction. We hope more Government-Linked Investment Corporations (GLICs) will take part in the fund.
- Growth must show up in people’s lives. That’s the test I’d put to this industry. Not just how many billions we attract, but how many Malaysians get better jobs and better pay because of it.
SELANGOR’S PART IN A NATIONAL EFFORT
Ladies and gentlemen,
- The National Semiconductor Strategy works only if the states move with it. Selangor has done that.
- IC Design Park 1 in Puchong and IC Design Park 2 in Cyberjaya were a bet on the front end of the industry, on design rather than only assembly. Together they’re now home to 20 companies and 407 engineers, and some of them are bringing Malaysian-designed chips to market. That’s the kind of progress that changes how the world sees us.
- I say this as someone who represents a constituency in Johor. People sometimes ask whether Selangor, Penang, Kedah and Johor are competing for the same investors. I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it.
- Penang has decades of manufacturing depth. Kulim in Kedah has wafer fabrication. Johor has land, power and its link to Singapore through the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone. Selangor has the talent pool of the Klang Valley, its universities and a growing design community.
- An investor looking at Malaysia should see one ecosystem, not a set of competing state pitches. When a design company in Puchong can work with a fab in Kulim and a test house in Penang, the whole country is more attractive.
TALENT, WAGES AND TODAY’S AGREEMENTS
Ladies and gentlemen,
- I’ve argued for a long time that Malaysia can’t grow its way to high income on low wages. For too long, too much of our growth depended on cheap labour. It kept costs down, but it also kept wages down and gave companies little reason to invest in skills.
- Workers’ share of our GDP is still only about 34%. That’s why Budget 2027 raises the minimum wage to RM2,000 from June next year, and introduces a new minimum of RM2,500 a month for semi-skilled workers and graduates. A minimum is only a floor. Industries like this one should be setting the ceiling much higher.
- The semiconductor industry gives us a way out of that trap. An IC design engineer, a process engineer, a test engineer: these are well-paid jobs that build know-how over a career. Every one we create here is one less young Malaysian who has to leave the country to do that work.
- That’s why I’m pleased that most of the agreements we’ll witness today are about people.
- Sidec is signing with UCSI, and Weeroc, one of the IC design companies growing out of Selangor’s ecosystem, is signing with Universiti Malaya and UiTM. ASEM is partnering with UiTM and Monash University here, and internationally with Peking University and Tashkent Tech University in Uzbekistan. These partnerships connect what students learn with what industry needs. Sidec is also signing with X-FAB, NCT Group, eMooVit, Aliran Tenaga and Work-E Robotics, bringing in manufacturing, mobility, energy and robotics expertise.
- And throughout AiSEM, the Malaysia Semiconductor Recruitment Day is putting fresh graduates and experienced engineers in the same hall as the companies that want to hire them. The 850 graduates of ASEM’s IC design training programmes show what’s possible when training is built with industry from the start.
- To the students here this morning: this industry needs you. Learn the fundamentals well, stay curious, and don’t assume you have to go abroad to do world-class work.
CLOSING
Ladies and gentlemen,
- Over these two days, this conference brings together more than 40 speakers from Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, India, the United States and beyond. Use the time well. Investors, look closely at what’s being built here. Companies, find the partners and talent you need. And to our delegates from abroad, I hope you leave seeing Malaysia not just as a place to assemble chips, but as a place to design and build the future of them.
- With that, it is my pleasure to officiate AiSEM@Selangor 2026. Thank you.