In an interview with Bloomberg, Fahmi Fadzil, the communications minister for Malaysia said the country will remain a free market and allow carriers to decide whether they wish to work with Chinese equipment makers.
Fadzil maintained, though, that the government will take the Western concerns into consideration, given the likes of the US and UK have rejected Huawei from their 5G infrastructure.
The Malaysian government backtracked on the single wholesale model it had planned to implement and has decided to introduce a second 5G network in the country, it announced last month.
Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister of Malaysia says the contracts to build the second network will be awarded through an open tender process.
Ibrahim has been planning to bring stability to the country’s network infrastructure after previously claiming that its 5G network was “not transparent”.
Malaysia has been one of the slowest countries in the region to rollout 5G but has promised 80% coverage by the end of the year.
Government figures estimate that this number was at 50% as of last month.
The EU and US had previously warned Malaysia over risks to national security and foreign investment.
Sources from the FT said that envoys to Malaysia were sent from the EU and US, who wrote to the government after it decided to review its decision to award Ericsson a US$2.5 billion tender to build the state-owned 5G network.
Meanwhile, the decision to block Huawei from a growing number of telecoms networks has forced Huawei to pivot its business, focusing on new revenue streams.
