Malaysia’s PM Call On International Firms To Collaborate With Locals
MALAYSIA’S prime minister Anwar Ibrahim urged international defence companies to engage with their Malaysian counterparts at the opening ceremony of the 19th Defence Services Asia 2026 and 4th National Security Asia 2026 (DSA & NATSEC Asia 2026).
“To the primes and Tier 1 suppliers here: come and find our manufacturers. Spend time with them,” he said. “A number of you have already begun to do exactly that, and I would invite those who have not to consider seriously why their peers have.”
He also pointed out that Malaysia has an active non-alignment policy that allows it to maintain working relations with all of its major partners. “Malaysia has a policy of active non-alignment, and that means we maintain working relationships across all major partners.
“A Malaysian supplier enters your supply chain without the political complications that have made sourcing decisions so difficult elsewhere. In the current environment, that is a genuine commercial consideration.”
On the part of the government, Anwar assured the exhibition participants that it will do its best to create a proper ecosystem for the companies while protecting intellectual property.
“Intellectual property will be protected promptly and reliably. Strategic trade controls will be enforced. Contracts will hold. The law will apply to everyone in the same way, without exception. These are the conditions without which none of what I have described this morning is possible, and we take that seriously.
“The government’s role in all of this is to create the conditions for serious work to happen. The commercial decisions belong to the companies. What belongs to us is the quality of the ground beneath those decisions.”
He also addressed the issue of defence technology advancing way ahead compared to the frameworks designed to govern them.
“The technology on display here is advancing faster than the frameworks designed to govern it. Autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities – these are already in use. The question of how they are used, by whom and under what constraints is one that governments must lead, and one that industry cannot stand apart from. The conversations that will matter most this week will not take place on this stage. They will take place between people who are meeting for the first time, working through problems that have not yet been fully defined, in the early stages of work that may take years to bear fruit.”