KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's business investments remained resilient in the face of a trade war between the US and China, said Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI) Datuk Darell Leiking.
“The Pakatan Harapan government had, since May until September, approved RM41.6 billion in manufacturing projects,” he said in a media briefing on American semiconductor giant Micron Technology Inc’s business expansion here today.
NASDAQ-listed Micron is pumping a further RM1.5 billion to produce 3D advance storage and memory packages in Penang.
“Good figures continue to flow in, despite negative news that we hear, news on the impact of trade war between two countries,” Darell said.
“I assure you business investments remain resilient and we, the Pakatan Harapan government, are resolute on facilitating more investments and relevant technological transfers to raise human capital development among Malaysians,” he said.
“We are always ready to work with new investors to enhance rapport with current investor to invest more such as Micron,” the minister added.
Also present at the briefing were Micron executive vice president of global operations Manish Bhatia, Ministry International Trade and Industry (Miti) secretary-general Datuk Isham Ishak, Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) chief executive officer Datuk Azman Mahmud and Invest-In-Penang Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Loo Lee Lian.
“Our expansion in Malaysia supports our strategy to build a scalable, agile and well-positioned global capacity model,” said Micron Technology backend operations senior vice president Gursharan Singh.
“This greenfield investment in Penang for solid-state drive (SSD) manufacturing will enhance our NAND centre of excellence in southeast Asia,” he added.
SSD is a non-volatile storage device that stores persistent data in flash memory. There are two types of flash memory, NAND and NOR.
Darell highlighted Micron’s new facility in Penang will strengthen the local electrical and electronics (E&E) ecosystem as it will integrate SSD manufacturing automation and Industry 4.0 manufacturing processes.
“Local companies will be able to collaborate in areas of robotics, big data and artificial intelligence,” the minister said.