Why investors are bullish on Malaysia’s Digital Economy

Part 2

Malaysia has a rich history as a multinational hub for traders. The Straits of Malacca has long been favoured as a major route connecting Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Today, Malaysia has evolved to being a hub of highly skilled talent, thriving within a vibrant business ecosystem founded on world-class infrastructure.

Opportunities for everyone

As the world moves rapidly into the 4^th Industrial Revolution (IR4.0), MDEC is ready and fully focused on leading Malaysia’s digital economy forward by accelerating:

1. Formulation of policies and coordination of agencies to enable success
2. Development of future proof workforce to grow the Digital Economy eco-system
3. Creation of global champions to increase contribution from the Digital Economy to GDP

It case you missed it, Malaysia has gone #SeriouslyDigital with:

• Cumulative Total Investment of RM472 billion from the MSC (1996 – 2018)
• Export sales worth RM166 billion
• More importantly, the MSC creating a total of 182,538 jobs.

We have made significant efforts to establish the right ecosystem to foster wide digital entrepreneurship.

My thoughts here will touch on just a few illustrations of recent and upcoming opportunities that have been built through collaboration; my MDEC colleagues will also be touching on many more initiatives across different parts of the digital economy as we move further into the year.

Just a few examples:

• Ninety (90)% of future jobs will require some level of digital literacy. The MyDigitalMaker movement has so far seen 450,000 students participating in a national public-private-academia initiative to encourage Malaysian youth to become digital producers and not just digital consumers.
• Inclusivity — inspiring everyone to take their place in the digital world - includes initiatives such as eRezeki, which empower Malaysians to start generating online income via platforms set up to match their respective skills with digital work. More than 210,000 participants have been trained with more than 110,00 of these reporting additional income amounting to a total of more than RM220 million reported.
• An initiative to mainstream digital entrepreneurs (eUsahawan) has so far trained 65,000 participants. More than 65,000 have reported additional sales, amounting to a total of more than RM370 million sales reported. Some individual success stories can be found at the site.
• The Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) is a national initiative to drive Malaysia’s cross border eCommerce through Digitalisation, by focusing on driving SME export through various eCommerce players. Another key outcome of DFTZ is to position Malaysia as Regional efulfilment hub.

And finally, coming back to the theme of investment: Investors come from many countries to Malaysia. Just one example — the USA is one of the top investors in MSC Malaysia, accounting for 10% of total investments as 132 American companies have so far been awarded MSC status, bringing in a total cumulative investment of RM30 billion from this investment channel alone.

However, let's not forget that investment also begins at home. Let's invest in our digital economy — invest some of our energy, abilities and desires - to grow and enrich our families and ourselves.

While digital transformation and digital economy may appear to be high-level taglines, digital adoption simplified is about finding out the best-use of digital tools and solutions to help build your place and base in this fast-growing and evolving new world.

As an agency under the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, MDEC remains committed to working closely with all levels of Government to speed the building and development of our digital economy as Malaysia accelerates into a leading Digital Nation.

#DigitalMalaysiaForward   #LetsBuildTogether

Dato’ Ng Wan Peng, Chief Operating Officer

Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)