Encouraging digital ecosystem in M’sia

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia continues to embrace the e-commerce culture and is well on its way to creating an innovative and vibrant digital ecosystem by fostering closer partnership with China in efforts to sustain economic growth.

Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC) and Alibaba Group recently signed a memorandum of understanding to connect e-hubs under the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP).

In a statement, HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd said the partnership aimed to build infrastructure for seamless cross-border e-commerce trade between Malaysia and China, as well as act as a hub for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) looking to run commercial activities where they could obtain services encompassing e-commerce, cloud comput- ing, logistics, mobile payments and talent training.

Chief executive officer Mukhtar Hussain, said the increasingly widespread digital technology was critical to amplifying productivity, innovation and living standards across the wider economy.

“With the eWTP, Malaysia is progressing its economic transformation vision and taking a step towards becoming the leading sourcing and fulfilment hub in Asia,” he said.

He said Malaysia's long awaited #MYCYBERSALE, in collaboration with MDEC, looked to achieve more than RM300mil in gross merchandise value (GMV) this year, a 42% increase from 2016’s RM211mil, during its five-day run from Oct 9-13, 2017.

This initiative aimed to encour- age more than 1,000 online SMEs to embrace e-commerce and boost innovation while stimulating the domestic e-commerce market.

“The success of the initiative shows that Malaysians are continuing to embrace the e-commerce culture. We can definitely see a shift in the way Malaysians are shopping. It is good to see the e-commerce industry and digital economy growing so steadily,” Mukhtar said.

He said the entry of global electronic wallet (e-wallet) providers was also expected to transform the payment system landscape in Malaysia.

The emergence of e-wallets will further contribute to the development of e-commerce and enhance the retail payment systems by offering fast, easy and secure payment processes. — Bernama