by AUFA MARDHIAH & HAJAR UMIRA MD ZAKI / pic BERNAMA

PRIME Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the government will provide additional funding and initiatives to internationalise local start-ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) following Ekonomi Madani announcement.

He said that to support the effort, the government encourages government linked companies (GLCs) and government linked investment companies (GLICs) to continue promoting domestic direct investment (DDI) and enhancing local vendor development in strategic industries such as electrical and electronics (E&E), digital economy and aerospace.

Additionally, the government plans to increase financing for export growth through initiatives like the Mid-tier Enterprise Development Programme and the Market Development Grant (MDG) administered by Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (Matrade), with an additional allocation of RM20 million.

Furthermore, Anwar also encouraged the capital market to be more active by allowing more firm listings and thereby giving birth to new local unicorns. For this, the Securities Commission (SC) will design a Financial Market Reform Policy that will make it simpler for retail investors to invest; attract more investors to finance SMEs as well as the country’s new growth activities; and boost capital market competitiveness on a worldwide scale.

“Recently, initial steps have been taken by lowering of stamp duty on stock transactions listed on the Bursa Malaysia in July 2023.

“Additionally, the plan for 2023 is to make investments cheaper by lowering trading lot sizes and allowing for fractional share trading. For this, SC will also allow companies listed on the ACE Market to automatically transfer to the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia,” said Anwar in a speech during the launch of “Ekonomi Madani” framework.

According to the Global Start-up Ecosystem Report 2023, Malaysia ranks 20th in the world, with the value of the Malaysian start-up ecosystem reaching US$46 billion (RM214.36 billion) in the first half of 2020 to 2022.

Moving forward, Anwar said the government together with GLICs will invest RM1 billion of additional funds in matching with private funds to support local start-ups and encourage technopreneurs — including ensuring the provision of funds for each phase of high-growth companies.

The government will also expand the implementation of programmes such as Corporate Hackathon and MYHackathon under the Malaysian Start-up Ecosystem Roadmap (SUPER) 2021-2030 to bring people and start-up companies closer to overcome the problems faced.

Furthermore, the government will allocate an additional RM100 million to intensify the research, development, commercialisation and innovation (R&D&C&I) ecosystem with a focus on industrial needs, renewable energy (RE), food security and new growth activities.

The initiatives are also part of the government’s ambition to reach a gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) of 3.5% of GDP by 2030 and to move Malaysia into the top 20 of the Global Innovation Index (GII) by 2025.

Additionally, to drive the reform of the digital economy, the implementation of Digital ID will be accelerated to develop online businesses and related applications. The digitisation matching grant will be increased by RM100 million to help SMEs accelerate the transition of the business model to a more digital one.