National Trade Blueprint

13 National Trade Blueprint The Need for a National Trade Blueprint Today, Malaysia has about 31,000 exporters, of which most of the exports are driven by mid-tier and large corporations. Overall, the number of exporters has increased, however export value has not grown at a similar pace. In terms of the contribution of exports, they are driven by mid-tier and large companies, despite a higher representation of SMEs in the economy. Further, when comparing the contribution of SME exports to the GDP, it shows that the overall growth of SME contribution is mostly local economy-oriented, instead of export market. In many key sectors and sub-sectors, such as the top 3 product categories of Malaysian exports, the contribution is highly concentrated within the top 10 companies. Additionally, most of the exports from the high value sectors were driven by MNCs. From the investment end, most of them were driven by large local and foreign companies. Interestingly, mid-tier companies led in terms of the number of projects and potential employment. Looking ahead, future supply of exports is expected to be derived mainly from petroleum products, electrical and electronic products, rubber products and transport equipment Exporters Landscape: Key Characteristics Formidable Challenges The findings from the National Trade Blueprint, supplemented by the analysis based on primary and secondary sources, have identified a catalogue of barriers or challenges which impede the growth of our exporters. Among the major reasons are the lack of access of market intelligence to identify the export strategies and the lack of financing to drive export initiatives which also impede the adoption journey of e-commerce and technology, innovation and R&D and etc.