Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

Malaysia's Personal Data Protection (Amendment) Act 2024 (Act A1727), gazetted 17 October 2024, enters its third and final commencement phase on 1 June 2025 per commencement order P.U.(B) 522/2024. Phase 3 activates sections 6 and 9 of the amending Act, which impose mandatory Data Protection Officer (DPO) appointment thresholds, a 72-hour breach-notification duty to the Commissioner, and a statutory data-portability right, bringing Malaysia's PDPA broadly into alignment with GDPR and the ASEAN Model AI Governance Framework.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) final rule (89 FR 87261; FR Doc 2024-25411) added 40 entities under 42 entries plus four addresses to the Entity List under the destinations China (11), India (5), Malaysia (2), Russia (13), Singapore (1), and Turkey (14), and modified 52 existing entries across China, Estonia, Finland, India, Turkey, the UAE and the UK. The dominant rationale is Russia-diversion enforcement: Chinese, Turkish, Indian, Malaysian and Singaporean entities listed for transshipping controlled US-origin items to Russian defense end users; the 13 Russia entries cover chemical and biological warfare R&D and defense procurement networks. License requirement is "all items subject to the EAR" with a policy/presumption of denial; four China addresses get the narrower "CCL + EAR99 supp. 7" scope. Effective on publication 2024-11-01.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim launched Malaysia's National Semiconductor Strategy (NSS) on 28 May 2024 in his keynote at SEMICON Southeast Asia, with implementation led by MITI. The NSS commits at least RM25 billion (~USD 5.3 billion) in fiscal support over a ten-year horizon and structures the chip industrial policy in three sequential phases: (1) shoring up Malaysia's existing strength in outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) and back-end packaging, (2) moving domestic firms into integrated-circuit (IC) design, advanced packaging and advanced manufacturing equipment, and (3) developing Malaysian-owned global champions across the chip value chain under a "Made by Malaysia" framing. Headline targets include developing 10 local design and advanced- packaging companies with revenues between RM1 billion and RM4.7 billion, 100 broader semiconductor-related companies near the RM1 billion revenue mark, and training 60,000 high- skilled engineers. The RM25 billion envelope decomposes into RM5 billion in tax forgone over five years, RM2 billion for existing capital grants, RM1.25 billion for an HRD Fund semiconductor allocation, RM2 billion for a Semiconductor Industrial Park, RM1.59 billion for an Advanced Packaging Centre, plus RM2 billion each for the National Energy Transition Facility and Green Tech Financing Scheme. By June 2025, the government reported RM70.7 billion in announced investments attracted under the NSS umbrella.

Bureau of Industry and Security final rule (89 FR 14403, Doc 2024-03674) adding two entities under seven entries to the Entity List, effective February 27, 2024. Sandvine Incorporated, a Canadian deep packet inspection vendor, is listed across six destinations (Canada, India, Japan, Malaysia, Sweden, UAE) because it supplies DPI technology to the Government of Egypt where it is used for mass web-monitoring and censorship. Chengdu Beizhan Electronics Co., Ltd. is listed under China for acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items on behalf of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), a PLA-affiliated institution already on the Entity List. All items subject to the EAR require a license with a presumption-of-denial review policy for both entities. The rule also revises entries for two existing Chinese entities and removes one UAE entry.