TENGKU ZAFRUL AZIZ

Biography

Tengku Zafrul bin Tengku Abdul Aziz (born 25 June 1973) is Senior Political Advisor to the Prime Minister, appointed in March 2026, and has chaired the Malaysian Investment Development Authority since December 2025. A banker before he entered government, he served as Minister of Finance from 2020 to 2022 and as Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry from 2023 to 2025. He was educated at Malay College Kuala Kangsar and Sherborne School in England, read economics and accounting at the University of Bristol, and took a master's in finance and management at the University of Exeter and an executive MBA at Tsinghua University's PBC School of Finance. His mother, Raja Zaharaton Raja Zainal Abidin, was director-general of the Economic Planning Unit. Before politics he was chief executive and executive director of CIMB Group Holdings and of CIMB Bank. Tengku Zafrul was appointed Finance Minister in March 2020 under Muhyiddin Yassin and retained the post under Ismail Sabri Yaakob — the first technocrat brought in from outside elected politics to hold it. Because he was not an MP he was appointed a senator in order to serve, and he steered the fiscal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including successive stimulus packages and the National Recovery Plan. He resigned his senatorship in November 2022, was reappointed the following month, and returned to cabinet under Anwar Ibrahim, taking the investment and trade portfolio in April 2023. He joined UMNO in 2023 and was a member of its supreme council before leaving the party in May 2025 for PKR, where he became an ex-officio member of the political bureau in January 2026. He has been president of the Badminton Association of Malaysia since May 2025.

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Electoral track record

127 mentions across 14 months

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