Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Industry (PSEI) Roadmap 2026–2030 was presented at the 4th SEIAC meeting at Malacañang on 23 March 2026 by BOI Executive Director Ma. Corazon Halili-Dichosa and formally rolled out by DTI in April 2026. The Roadmap targets $110 billion in annual exports by 2030 ($70B semiconductors + $40B electronics, approximately doubling the current ~$50B baseline) via value-chain ascent from assembly-test-packaging through IC design toward front-end wafer fabrication, supported by 128,000-worker upskilling over five years and up to three national laboratories in fabrication, R&D, and talent development.

On 7 January 2026 the National Semiconductor and Advanced Electronics Industry Policy Committee (the "Semiconductor Board"), chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Ekniti Nitithanprapas, endorsed the Draft National Strategy for the Development of the Semiconductor and Advanced Electronics Industry, prepared by the Board of Investment (BOI) with Roland Berger after a public hearing in October 2025. The 25-year roadmap (2026-2050) targets more than THB 2.5 trillion (~USD 79.6 billion) in investment, training of more than 230,000 highly-skilled engineers, and construction of a complete upstream-to- downstream semiconductor ecosystem with phased milestones for 2030, 2040 and 2050. The strategy prioritises five product groups where Thailand has competitive potential — Power chips, Sensors, Photonics, Analog and Discrete chips — and explicitly aims to move the country beyond OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) into IC design and upstream wafer fabrication ("Made-in-Thailand chips"). Implementation runs through a five-pillar BOI support mechanism: long-term low-interest financing and grants, human-capital development, technology upgrade of the Microelectronics Technology Centre (TMEC), specialised industrial clusters with guaranteed renewable-energy and water security, and streamlined regulatory approvals including a new BOI "FastPass" fast-track facility (16 pilot projects worth THB 170 billion already processed).

On 23 May 2025 the Bureau of Industry and Security notified major electronic design automation (EDA) suppliers — Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys, and Siemens EDA — by letter that a license is now required for any export, re-export, or in-country transfer of EDA software and technology classified under ECCNs 3D991 and 3E991 where a party to the transaction is located in China or is a Chinese "military end user" wherever located. BIS determined the shipments posed an unacceptable risk of diversion to Chinese military end use. The action was not published as a Federal Register rule; it surfaced publicly only through the affected companies' SEC 8-K disclosures. Synopsys suspended its FY2025 financial guidance in response. BIS rescinded the requirement effective 2 July 2025 (see amendments) amid the broader US-China trade truce, and the three vendors restored access for affected customers.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. signed Administrative Order No. 31 s. 2025 on 28 March 2025, establishing the Semiconductor and Electronics Industry Advisory Council (SEIAC) as the President's primary advisory body on semiconductor and electronics industry development, promotion, and competitiveness. The SEIAC is chaired by the Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs, with the DTI Secretary as Vice-Chair, and mandates the Council to provide strategic guidance for implementing the Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Industry (PSEI) Roadmap, coordinate inter-agency interventions across the value chain, and recommend legislative measures for sectoral competitiveness.

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.