International Business News – Malaysia government recently introduced digital initiative, focus on the digital tourism, trade, digital agriculture, nine domains such as finance, aims to promote the development of digital technology popularization, support local science and technology company, attract high value number three measures, such as investment increase Malaysia in the field of global digital revolution and economic competitiveness, promote the development of digital economy.
Malaysia has launched a talent program and a digital trade program to implement digital initiatives. The Talent Program covers measures such as visa facilitation, accommodation and workspace, and convenient living services for “digital workers” and aims to make Malaysia the preferred “digital workforce hub” in ASEAN to facilitate digital technology exchange and promote other sectors such as tourism, transportation, retail, and food and beverage. The program is expected to be implemented in the first year. Officials expect the program to generate 60 million Malaysian ringgit (about 4.5 Malaysian ringgit per US dollar) for the local economy in its first year of implementation. The Digital Trade Program aims to accelerate the development of e-commerce, accelerate the digital transformation of business, and promote cross-border trade facilitation.
The Malaysian Ministry of Communications and Multimedia has specially set up the “Malaysian Digital Coordination Committee” to be responsible for the implementation, management and coordination of digital initiatives. A few days ago, 6 companies have been certified as Malaysian digital enterprises, which can enjoy a series of government incentives and facilitate investment and operation.
The digital economy is an important driver of the Malaysian economy, contributing an estimated 22.6% to the country’s gross domestic product and is expected to grow to 25.5% by 2025. The Malaysian government attaches great importance to and continues to provide policy support for the development of the digital economy. In 2021, Malaysia will launch the National E-Commerce Strategy Roadmap 2.0 to strengthen policy implementation and supervision, improve the e-commerce ecosystem, and promote e-commerce growth by providing training for SMEs and establishing a one-stop business portal. The government expects 875,000 small, medium and micro enterprises to conduct e-commerce by 2025. In the same year, the Malaysian government launched a ten-year digital economy blueprint “Digital Malaysia”, proposing to invest in the construction of digital infrastructure such as 5G and ultra-large data centers through public-private cooperation, and catalyze 5,000 startups in the next five years.
A number of data show that the outside world continues to be optimistic about the investment prospects of Malaysia’s Internet industry. According to the “2021 Southeast Asia Digital Economy Report” released by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company, Malaysia’s Internet economy will reach US$21 billion in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 47%, and is expected to grow to US$35 billion by 2025. In 2021, Malaysia’s e-commerce transaction volume reached MYR 1 trillion for the first time, with all internet sectors rebounding strongly with double-digit growth rates.