Zaily Ayub

Zaily Ayub is a highly experienced customs, taxation, transfer pricing and economic policy specialist with extensive experience in the Royal Malaysian Customs Department (RMCD), Ministry of Finance and international customs governance. His professional background spans customs valuation, transfer pricing, tax forecasting, trade facilities, risk analytics, economic modelling, border control, compliance auditing and policy development, making him a valuable advisor for industries operating in complex regulatory and cross-border trade environments.

With his combined exposure in customs enforcement, economic analysis, taxation policy, trade facilitation and industrial compliance, Zaily Ayub brings practical insight into how organisations can strengthen customs governance, reduce transfer pricing exposure, improve compliance management and navigate increasingly complex regulatory and international trade environments.

He most recently served as Head of Trade Facilities & Industry under the Treasury Exemption Unit of the Royal Malaysian Customs Department, where he was responsible for monitoring and developing exemption and refund policies involving industrial and trade facilitation mechanisms. His role involved balancing industrial competitiveness, fiscal control and customs regulatory compliance within Malaysia’s manufacturing and trade ecosystem.

Prior to that, he served as Head of Transfer Pricing under the Research and Valuation Division, Technical Services Division of RMCD, where he reviewed transfer pricing applications and appeals involving multinational and large corporate structures. He was also involved as team leader for a Big Data Analytics initiative under the 12th Malaysia Plan (RMK-12), aimed at strengthening customs intelligence and analytics capability.

His expertise in taxation and analytics was further strengthened through his role as Data Analytics Leader under the Sales and Service Tax Division, where he analysed corporate risk patterns and identified fraud exposure and tax non-compliance risks. Earlier, he led GST revenue forecasting initiatives for the Customs Department using statistical and econometric methodologies, supporting national fiscal planning and tax policy evaluation.

Operationally, he possesses strong field exposure in customs auditing, import-export regulation, valuation and classification. While serving as Head of Post Import Compliance in Perak, he led compliance audits and successfully detected and recovered approximately RM43 million in unpaid revenue. He also advised industries and importers on customs valuation and tariff classification matters involving technical and regulatory disputes.

Prior to joining Customs, he served under the Tax Analysis Division of the Ministry of Finance as an econometrician and statistician, where he was involved in developing tax revenue forecasting models, analysing tax expenditure implications and supporting macroeconomic and fiscal policy analysis.

His experience extends into border control and strategic trade governance, having managed projects involving Megaports Initiative, e-Manifest and border control systems under the Customs Division. He also served as a Professional Associate under the World Customs Organization (WCO) Compliance and Facilitation Directorate, providing him with international exposure in customs compliance, facilitation and trade governance practices.

His technical competency includes economic and taxation analysis, transfer pricing, customs valuation, forecasting, fraud analytics, machine learning applications, trade policy analysis and statistical modelling. He is also experienced in areas involving money laundering, export control regimes, nuclear security, chemical weapon conventions and strategic trade compliance.