KUALA LUMPUR, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the lead agency of digital transformation in Malaysia, unveiled its five-year plan on Monday which includes attracting 50 billion ringgit (about 11.84 billion U.S. dollars) investments in the digital economy.
MDEC said in a statement that the five-year initiative, which will run from 2021 to 2025, aims to secure high quality digital investments as it seeks to unlock new drivers of growth in the digital economy.
The target of the five-year plan includes attracting 50 billion ringgit investments in the digital economy and creating 50,000 high-value jobs by 2025.
It also aims to attract 50 Fortune500 tech companies to land and expand in Malaysia, and eyes the establishment of five unicorns.
It said the investments will focus on five key industry sectors, five focus technologies, five emerging technologies and digital global business services.
According to MDEC, the five industry sectors that have been identified as key drivers are AgTech, HealthTech, Islamic Digital Economy and FinTech, CleanTech and EduTech.
"These industries are based on the strategic national industries for digitalization and have also been mapped to the national priority sectors. Digitalization of these industries will have a high impact on investment, jobs and contribution to gross domestic product," it said.
The size and potential of these sectors would also draw large global companies, where Malaysia could benefit from international partnerships with local companies and the resulting technology and knowledge transfer.
Meanwhile, attracting and driving investments in five focus technologies are also important to facilitate the growth of these sectors, namely cloud computing, data center, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and digital content tools, said the MDEC.
The five-year initiative will also be focusing on five key emerging technologies which are blockchain, drone technology, edge computing, extended reality and advanced robotics, to drive innovation.
"These will increase the economic complexity of the nation and help develop new and existing economic clusters which in turn creates high value job opportunities and extend domestic economic linkages," it said.
MDEC will also be increasing efforts to grow the digital global business services, encouraging the use of robotic process automation and data analytics as well as knowledge engineering. (1 U.S. dollar equals 4.22 Malaysian ringgit) Enditem
