# MITI — Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry

> Agency entity page for the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry — the ministry that sets Malaysia's trade and industrial policy, negotiates free trade agreements, and oversees the agencies (MIDA, MATRADE and others) that carry those policies out.

- Category: government
- Language: en
- Status: published
- Updated: 2026-07-24
- Canonical: https://negaraku.md/en/government/miti

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## At a glance

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Full name | Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry |
| Malay name | Kementerian Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri (retains the historical Malay name; the ministry's own English name changed in 2023) |
| Type | Federal ministry |
| Renamed | 5 April 2023, from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry — same acronym, MITI |
| Core remit | Investment, trade and industrial policy; free trade agreement negotiation |
| Key agencies | MIDA (investment), MATRADE (exports), plus around a dozen others |
| Website | `miti.gov.my` |

## What MITI actually does

MITI does not approve your factory licence or your export grant. It sets the
policy those approvals run on.

Confirmed on the ministry's own site, MITI's stated functions cover policy on
industrial development and trade, attracting investment, promoting exports,
enhancing productivity, running standardisation services, and supporting SME
and Bumiputera business development for global competitiveness. Its vision
statement is "Malaysia as the preferred investment destination, sustainable
industrial and competitive trading nation."

That split — policy at the ministry, execution at the agency — is the single
most useful thing to understand about MITI. Two agencies do most of the
execution:

| Agency | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **MIDA** — Malaysian Investment Development Authority | Promotes and approves investment in manufacturing and services; the agency investors and companies actually apply to for licences and incentives |
| **MATRADE** — Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation | Promotes Malaysian companies' exports and helps them enter overseas markets |

## Where MIDA and MATRADE came from

Both agencies were established well before MITI's 2023 rename, and both sit
under it as statutory bodies rather than as parts of the ministry itself.

- **MIDA** was incorporated in 1967 under the Malaysian Investment Development
  Authority (Incorporation) Act 1965 (Act 397). Its own stated mandate is to
  "harmonise government promotion efforts, optimise resources, and establish
  effective structured investment promotion agency governance" for Malaysia's
  manufacturing and services sectors.
- **MATRADE** was established under the Malaysia External Trade Development
  Corporation Act 1992 (Act 490), which came into force on 1 March 1993, as
  Malaysia's external trade promotion arm.

A structural change worth knowing about: from **1 January 2024**, MITI
centralised the investment promotion and marketing functions of federal-level
investment promotion agencies under MIDA, so that an investor's journey does
not run into duplicated functions across separate bodies. Regional investment
promotion agencies affected by this move — InvestKL among them — were
subsequently folded in under MIDA.

## The name change that's easy to miss

MITI carried the name **Ministry of International Trade and Industry** for
decades before it became the **Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry**
on 5 April 2023. The acronym MITI was deliberately kept, so the rename shows
up nowhere in day-to-day references — only in the spelled-out name. If an
older document or citation says "Ministry of International Trade and
Industry," it is referring to the same ministry under its former name.

## Beyond MIDA and MATRADE

MITI's own agencies listing names roughly a dozen further statutory bodies
and companies under its purview, alongside MIDA and MATRADE. The ones most
likely to come up in practice:

- **MPC** — Malaysia Productivity Corporation
- **SIRIM Berhad** and **Standards Malaysia (JSM)** — standards, testing and
  industrial research
- **EXIM Bank** and **MIDF** — export-import and industrial development
  financing
- **NAICO** — the National Automotive Industry Council

The exact current roster and each entity's legal form were not independently
checked against every enabling instrument for this page — treat this list as
illustrative, and confirm the current line-up on `miti.gov.my` before relying
on it for a formal purpose.

## Trade agreements

MITI leads Malaysia's free trade agreement negotiations, both bilateral and
regional. Malaysia is a party to the **Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP)** and the **Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for
Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)**, among other agreements, with MITI as the
lead negotiating ministry.

## Where the related rules live

| Topic | Article |
| --- | --- |
| Customs duties, import/export procedure and preferential FTA tariffs | [RMCD — Royal Malaysian Customs Department](/en/government/rmcd-kastam) |
| Company and business registration | [SSM — Companies Commission of Malaysia](/en/government/ssm) |

## What's next

MIDA and MATRADE each warrant their own entity pages — how to apply for an
investment incentive through MIDA, and how MATRADE's export support programmes
work — as separate, deeper articles once written. For now, the working rule
is simple: policy questions go to MITI, investment approvals go to MIDA, and
export promotion goes to MATRADE.

## Sources

- Vision, Mission, Corporate Philosophy, Objectives and Functions — https://www.miti.gov.my/index.php/pages/view/2047?mid=29 (Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI))
- Agencies under MITI — https://www.miti.gov.my/index.php/pages/view/2681 (Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI))
- Act 397 — Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Incorporation) Act 1965 — https://lom.agc.gov.my/act-detail.php?act=397 (Attorney General's Chambers of Malaysia)
- Our Principles — MIDA — https://www.mida.gov.my/about-mida/our-principles/ (Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA))
- Act 490 — Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation Act 1992 — https://lom.agc.gov.my/act-detail.php?act=490 (Attorney General's Chambers of Malaysia)
- MITI: Investment promotion agencies' functions to be centralised under MIDA on Jan 1, 2024 — https://www.mida.gov.my/mida-news/miti-investment-promotion-agencies-functions-to-be-centralised-under-mida-on-jan-1-2024/ (Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA))
- Investment Promotion Functions Streamlined Under MIDA — https://www.mida.gov.my/investment-promotion-functions-streamlined-under-mida/ (Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA))
- MITI now known as Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry — https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2023/04/898800/miti-now-known-ministry-investment-trade-and-industry (New Straits Times)

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