PUTRAJAYA, Oct 7 – The government will establish an information and communications technology (ICT) “finishing school” to train 25,000 knowledge workers needed to take the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) to its third phase of development starting next year.The programme’s curriculum will be jointly developed with industry players to be more market-driven, in an effort to boost ICT contribution to GDP from 1.2 per cent in 2009 to 10.2 per cent by 2015, as outlined in the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP).
The Najib administration also intends to issue work permits to the top 1,000 foreign ICT students from local institutions of higher learning annually to address the projected shortfall in talent in coming years.
“The focus is to leverage the ICT sector even more and take things to a new level,” Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak (picture) said here today after chairing the 22nd Implementation Council Meeting (ICM) and the 13th MSC Malaysia International Advisory Panel (IAP).
“Based on our discussions today, we have come to the conclusion that the way forward requires us to start working towards an innovative digital economy.”
The prime minister explained that the goal of the initiative was to ensure Malaysia’s competitiveness in the “fast and unforgiving” world digital economy by stimulating creativity with new technologies, outlets and opportunities.
While acknowledging the success of MSC’s second phase – it contributed over RM35 billion to GDP from 2004 to 2010 and created 83,000 jobs – Najib cautioned that only a well-planned and executed “digital strategy” would allow Malaysia to further tap into the digital economy, which contributed to 35 per cent of world trade in 2009, or US$5.95 trillion (RM18.4 trillion).
In view of this, the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) will develop the architecture for a national innovative digital economy framework, infuse technology across all economic sectors to drive productivity and innovation, make Malaysia an ICT solutions hub, empower ICT to increase the country’s competitive advantages and utilise ICT to increase quality of life.
“These outcomes perfectly complement the outcomes of th government’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP),” Najib said.
“A total of 85 of the 131 EPPs (Entry Point Projects), which are collectively worth RM670 billion, are ICT dependent, with 28 of these being ICT intensive.”
He added that the government will also set up a task force to facilitate soft loans to support expansion of small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and formulate a national intellectual property (IP) valuation model to support the acceptance of IP as collateral by financial institutions.
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