KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 — Malaysia’s record export growth in October, rising 15.7 per cent year-on-year to RM148.32 billion, the highest ever, highlights the success of its geoeconomic hedge strategy, said IPPFA Sdn Bhd director and country economist Mohd Sedek Jantan.
Mohd Sedek told Bernama that the strategy, which involves diversified products and multi-market penetration, has helped reduce exposure to concentrated shocks.
The economist said broad-based gains across electrical and electronics (E&E), optical and scientific equipment, and palm-oil-based goods reflect a shift towards sectoral heterogeneity, which has improved resilience consistent with modern trade-resilience and trade-policy uncertainty frameworks.
He said the sustained 66-month trade surplus and strong capital goods imports further indicated continued production upgrading and deeper integration into reconfigured global value chains.
“Concurrent export expansion across ASEAN, China, the European Union (EU) and Taiwan — with Taiwan and Hong Kong reaching record highs — suggests that Malaysia is benefiting from global tariff-driven trade diversion.
“This is reinforced by the sharp increase in US effective tariff rates, which rose from 2.2 per cent in January to 10.55 per cent by August 2025, along with China-specific effective rates of 39.2 per cent that have redirected supply chain flows across Asia,” he told Bernama.
Commenting on Malaysia’s near-term export trajectory, Mohd Sedek said the performance will remain constructive, supported by a diversified demand base across ASEAN (20.1 per cent), China (7.5 per cent), the EU (23.8 per cent) and Taiwan (38.7 per cent).
This will reinforce the stability of its evolving multi-sector export architecture in the face of elevated global trade policy uncertainty, he added.
“As global tariff asymmetry persists, driven by US effective tariff rates that have risen to 10.55 per cent overall and up to 30 to 40 per cent for steel, aluminium and China-origin categories, firms are recalibrating supply chains toward neutral and diversified production hubs.
“This positions Malaysia to benefit from continued trade diversion even if month-on-month moderation emerges due to year-end production cycles,” he said.
The rising capital goods imports, ongoing capacity expansion and the launch of new trade corridors such as the Malaysia-United Arab Emirates (UAE) Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), effective Oct 1, 2025, are enhancing Malaysia’s capacity to sustain strong export momentum into early 2026, he added.
