KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia must build a stronger middle class to ensure that the country, as well as ASEAN, is not seen just as a production hub but also a viable consumer market, said Deputy Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Liew Chin Tong.
He emphasised that over the long run, Malaysia aims to reduce its dependence on the United States (US) as its primary and ultimate consumer.
“If we can move towards that direction, then we will have a different world order in which there are multiple centres of both production and consumption.
“We also want to be able to hold on to a middle position in geopolitics. As much as we can navigate geopolitical tension between the US and China, and as much as we can create a third space, a middle ground in geopolitics, it is very crucial to our economy,” he said during a “Deciphering Malaysia’s Investment Cycles” panel at the Sasana Symposium 2025 today.
Liew said that as the world shifts from a unipolar world dominated by the US to a potentially multipolar global landscape, Malaysia needs to embrace a “three middle” approach to remain competitive and relevant on the global stage.
The “three middle” approach involves becoming an indispensable “middle” in the supply chain and technological map, maintaining a “middle” position in geopolitics, and fostering a stronger “middle” class.
Meanwhile, Liew told reporters that Malaysia needs to have a “whole-of-value-chain” investment.
Giving an example, he said the investment in data centre segments is not just about having data centres, but also about extracting the most value from those investments.
This includes driving more investment into renewable energy so that data centres become a catalyst for the green transition, as well as encouraging greater investment into the supply chain and creating better jobs both within and outside the data centre ecosystem.
He added that it should also involve investing in artificial intelligence (AI) transformation across the board and creating opportunities for Malaysia to develop its own sovereign AI, as part of the broader whole-of-value-chain approach.
“We (government) also want to deal with the issue of phantom demand, because within the data centre, there are speculative builds, and we do not want to see speculative builds.
“We want to ensure that genuine operators with genuine capacity are in the system,” he said.
