PETALING JAYA: Robust semiconductor shipments are helping sustain Malaysia’s export momentum, highlighting the sector’s growing importance to the country’s external trade performance.
According to Phillip Capital Research, the government’s exports data differentiates between domestic, which involve production processes undertaken within the country, and re-exports, which involve importing goods and then exporting them with not much value-added activities involved.
The government provides the domestic exports data in the final trade release, around a week after the preliminary external trade statistics. Besides Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong also provide similar data differentiating between domestic exports and re-exports.
The research house said despite domestic exports having surged to 42% year-on-year (y-o-y) in May, the fastest pace since the post-Covid-19 recovery, re-exports have outpaced domestic exports since early 2025, highlighting Malaysia’s role in regional trade and supply-chain intermediation.
“Semiconductor exports mainly drove the strong performance, averaging 102.9% y-o-y growth over the period amid the global semiconductor upcycle,” it said.
“In January to July 2026, domestic exports increased by 22%, significantly higher than the 2% growth recorded in 2025.”
The research house noted that despite semiconductor exports becoming increasingly important among the electrical and electronic (E&E) segments of the manufacturing sector, with shipments making up 30% of Malaysia’s total exports last year, the share of re-exports has risen over the years.
Drilling down further, nearly 60% of semiconductor exports were locally produced compared to most other E&E segments, in which domestic exports accounted for 88% of total E&E exports from January to July this year.
