How Malaysia shrugged off Trump’s tariffs, according to its finance minister

Fortune

Malaysia Minister of Finance II YB Senator Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan told the Fortune Innovation Forum that when President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs took effect, “we didn’t panic.”

Transcript

00:00This year has been a very challenging year for everybody, right?

00:02But Malaysia's approach has always been an approach that is always measured

00:06and actually trying to take and take decisions,

00:09what is necessary for the long term in doing it.

00:12So when Liberation Day hit, we didn't panic.

00:15We weren't the first going out there and saying,

00:17I'm going to reset my target to be this.

00:19We took some time to understand what were the capacity of us to be able to respond,

00:24what were the key things that we needed to do and then execute against that.

00:28Hence, you saw Bengara came up with a revised estimate only in July this year

00:32and we reduced our rate from 4% to 4.8%.

00:36And touch wood, we're still being able to get to a 5.2% in third quarter.

00:43And I think that's the strength of the Malaysian economy.

00:46The Malaysian economy has a very deep diversification at its base.

00:51No export market is greater than 13%.

00:53So it's a wide range of markets.

00:55And the base of the economy is also quite well integrated along the way.

01:00And that's helped us being able to address the challenges

01:02that we're seeing today in the ever-changing world.

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