Malaysia woos tech start-up businesses

When it comes to tech start-up hubs in Southeast Asia, entrepreneurs sometimes look past Malaysia to the lure of Singapore’s vibrant financial centre or Indonesia’s attractiveness as the region’s largest economy.

They shouldn’t, said a former Microsoft executive who’s now in charge of driving the country’s digital economy. Policymakers are serious about developing the sector that created more than 170,000 new jobs and contributed 18.2 per cent of gross domestic product in 2017, said Yasmin Mahmood, chief executive officer of the government’s Malaysia Digital Economy Corp. MDEC’s initiatives to lure entrepreneurs to the country span new immigration policies and tax incentives, Yasmin said in an interview in Singapore Tuesday. Malaysia grants a one-year visit pass for tech entrepreneurs based overseas and up to a decade of tax exemption for startups, including those fully foreign-owned, she said. “We are open for the world to come and play,” said Mahmood, who held management positions in the Malaysian offices of Dell and Microsoft.