MALAYSIA needs to develop new growth areas, including the renewable energy and electric vehicle (EV) sectors, to increase the demand for semiconductor chips in this country.

Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) deputy chief executive officer (investment development) Lim Bee Vian said the demand would strengthen Malaysia’s economic growth as one of the main suppliers in the global semiconductor chain.

“Malaysia, a small country, contributes 12-13% of the global chip supply, so we are important in that sense.

“We should promote the EV sector as a new growth area because it will help increase the demand for chips,” she said in Sungai Petani today.

She said IT infrastructure services and solutions is another area that needed focus to ensure that the demand for chips remained high.

Lim said the awareness among industry players on the need to adopt smart warehousing is growing because it improves efficiency.

“The investment for smart warehousing is high. Big companies are moving toward that direction, especially big logistic companies. Small companies may have certain elements of smart warehousing but these are not fully integrated.

“Mida encourages companies to upgrade their warehouses because this will help decrease the need for foreign labour to run their operations and also raises efficiency,” she said. – Bernama, March 17, 2023.