Malaysia’s government sponsored initiative, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) , is lining up several plans in 2016 to boost the IoT industry in Malaysia.
Their proposed plans concur with Malaysia’s National IoT Strategic Roadmap, released by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. This was intended to serve as a guideline to transit Malaysia into a regional IoT hub.
The Roadmap was expected to yield RM9.5 billion in revenue from the IoT industry towards Malaysia’s Gross National Income (GNI).
Vice President of the Infotech division, Norhizam Abdul Kadir, acknowledges Malaysia’s challenges and its aims to be a central IoT hub.
“The IoT ecosystem in Malaysia is not robust yet. As a government agency, we want to ensure that the ecosystem is complete and everything is happening in Malaysia,” he said.
The key for MDeC’s plans to work is to first establish awareness of the rewards that IoT can reap. Mr Norhizam is optimistic about Malaysia’s capacity in transitioning into an IT hub due to its industrial structure.
“Malaysia has the advantage because we have been doing manufacturing for a long time. It has always been a key part of our economy. We have the talents too,” he added .
Malaysia is positive in embracing the challenge of IoT adoption along with highly competing economies with their proposed plans. A recent report stated that 71% of the Malaysian population uses a smartphone as compared to 90% in Singapore.
Among their various key plans is for the government providing incentives for local board makers and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) to extend their services to include low-volume, high-mix prototypes.
“Ideally, the plan is to help transform these players into agile or prototype manufacturers. We have agile manufacturers in Malaysia, but [the industry] is a lot bigger in China,” he said.