New Straits Times (29/03/2026) - WHILE the old powers lurch between protectionism and geopolitical panic, the Global South is quietly beginning to reshape the world economy from below — not with slogans, but with ports, factories, industrial corridors and strategic investments that bind developing economies together in more productive and mutually beneficial ways.

This is where the next global system will be built. And Malaysia should not be a spectator.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has rightly argued that the Global South is reclaiming "a voice that can no longer be ignored in the emerging international order."

But that voice cannot rest on rhetoric alone. If Malaysia wants to lead, it must do more than speak about South-South cooperation. It must help build it through concrete, strategic business partnerships that deepen industrial capacity across the developing world.

A powerful example already exists. In San Pedro, Ivory Coast, Malaysian cocoa giant Guan Chong has shown what intelligent South-South investment can look like.

By investing in cocoa grinding capacity close to one of the world's richest cocoa-producing zones, it has done more than expand its own global footprint. It has helped shift value-added activity closer to the source of production.

Ivory Coast gains processing jobs, technical capability and a greater share of the value chain. Guan Chong gains stronger supply access, logistical efficiency and a more strategic position in world markets.

That is not charity. It is not extraction. It is smart industrial partnership.

And it offers a template for what Malaysia can do next — especially in two sectors where we possess world-class capabilities: palm oil and rubber.

West Africa is the natural frontier. Take palm oil. The historical irony is striking: oil palm is native to West Africa.

In the 1960s, Malaysia and Ivory Coast were starting from roughly the same level in palm oil production. Yet today Malaysia produces 40 times more output.

This is one of the great postcolonial development divergences. The difference was not geography. It was institutions, organisation, research, processing capacity and the ability to turn a crop into a complete industrial ecosystem.

That ecosystem is now one of Malaysia's great economic strengths. Palm oil is not merely an export commodity; it is a pillar of the national economy.

In 2024, palm oil contributed RM114 billion in export value and 2.3 per cent of GDP. Malaysia is not simply a successful producer.

It is a world leader in certified sustainable palm oil, with decades of accumulated expertise in planting materials, estate management, milling, refining, logistics and downstream processing.

But at home, the sector faces structural challenges: land constraints, ageing estates, labour pressures and rising costs.

West Africa offers what Malaysia increasingly lacks — room to expand, ecological suitability and proximity to fast-growing regional markets.

The opportunity, however, is not simply to plant more oil palm. That would be the old colonial model: acquire land, grow the crop, export the output.

Malaysia should reject that approach. Our real advantage is not just capital. It is the ability to build systems.

Malaysia's palm oil success was built not only on plantations, but also on research, extension services, integrated mills, refineries, logistics and the organisation of smallholders into productive value chains.

That is the real lesson of the Felda era: when smallholders are properly supported, productivity rises, incomes improve and rural transformation becomes possible.

This is precisely what much of West Africa needs.

Countries such as Ivory Coast have land, farmers and market potential. What is often missing is the institutional architecture: better seedlings, agronomic support, aggregation systems, milling capacity, refining and downstream industries.

Malaysian firms can help fill that gap — not by displacing local farmers, but by organising them into more productive systems, raising yields on existing land and building industries in edible oils, oleochemicals and consumer products.

In other words, Malaysia's most valuable export may not be palm oil itself. It may be institutional know-how. The same logic applies, perhaps even more powerfully, to rubber.

Malaysia is one of the world's clearest examples of how a commodity economy can move up the value chain. Over decades, it built a globally dominant latex-based manufacturing sector, especially in rubber gloves.

Even after the pandemic boom subsided, Malaysia remains the world leader in natural rubber gloves. This year, natural rubber glove exports were worth RM15.57 billion, accounting for 46 per cent of total rubber-based exports.

That is a remarkable industrial achievement. It shows how Malaysia transformed upstream agricultural production into sophisticated downstream manufacturing.

West Africa can benefit from that same playbook.

Countries such as Ivory Coast, Liberia and Ghana already have a rubber base. But, as with palm oil, the issue is not whether rubber can be grown.

It is whether yields can be raised, latex collection improved, processing upgraded and local manufacturing deepened.

Malaysian expertise in planting material, replanting systems, latex collection, grading, aggregation and processing could help transform the sector.

If that happens, West African economies gain far more than raw commodity exports. They gain jobs, technical capability, industrial upgrading and a larger share of the value created from their own resources.

And Malaysia gains too. A stronger upstream rubber partnership in West Africa can make Malaysian rubber product companies, from gloves to industrial rubber goods and automotive components, more resilient and more globally competitive.

In an age of supply-chain disruption and geopolitical fragmentation, that is not a side benefit. It is a strategic advantage. This is the larger point.

The old model of globalisation is breaking down. For decades, the South supplied raw materials while the North captured the margins. That system was unequal, unstable and ultimately unsustainable.

But the answer cannot be Trump-style economic nationalism — a world of tariffs, coercion and every country for itself. Nor can it be nostalgia for an old international order that never truly served most developing countries.

What we need instead is a new model of sustainable globalisation: one in which the Global South invests in the Global South, builds productive capacity in the Global South, processes more of its own resources and shares value more equitably across borders.

Malaysia is unusually well placed to help lead that shift. Cocoa in San Pedro is the proof of concept. Palm oil in Ivory Coast could be the next frontier.

Rubber across West Africa could be the industrial multiplier. Together, they point to something larger than any single sector: a Malaysian-led template for a more mature, more strategic and more mutually beneficial Global South partnership.

Not a scramble for land or a new commodity frontier, or a softer version of the old extractive model.

But a partnership built on institutional transfer, industrial upgrading, stronger smallholder livelihoods, deeper local value addition and shared long-term competitiveness. In short, putting into practice the spirit of Bandung 55'.

While Trump tears down the old international system, Malaysia and the Global South should be busy building the new one. And Malaysia should not merely join that future. It should take the lead to design it.

Read more at https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2026/03/1405817/how-malaysia-can-help-build-smarter-global-south-economy