KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is moving forward and hopeful that it can achieve some RM31 billion ($9.8 billion) in public-private partnership investments from Digital Malaysia by 2020. On Thursday, the optimistic projection was revealed by Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) CEO Badlisham Ghazali. He said 8 ICT projects had already been approved this year and will be rolled out in phases, with more in the pipeline. The move has the ICT community in Penang excited, with Edris Mahammad, a web developer, hopeful that the new moves will boost Malaysia's already growing technology sector. “We have seen a lot of government push in recent years, and it has really been successful, so this new initiative is only going to make doing business for us in the sector easier,” he told Bikyamasr.com via phone from Georgetown. Launched last October, the Digital Malaysia initiative is a national project that hopes to increase the ICT sector's contribution to its gross national income (GNI) to 17 percent, or RM294 billion (US$93.2 billion), by 2020. Badlisham added in the public statement reported by local Malaysian media that “one of the eight ongoing projects include the Asian e-Fulfillment Hub, which aims to turn Malaysia into Asia's hub for cross-border e-commerce shipment.” He said that single project is expected to attract RM620 million worth of investments and create 1,622 jobs, and contribute RM287 million (US$91 million) to the country's GNI in 8 years' time. Another project highlighted by Badlisham was e-payment services for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and micro enterprises. This is expected to bring about RM600 million (US$190 million) in investments, create 2,000 new job opportunities, and contribute RM5 billion (US$1.6 billion) to the GNI, the Sun Daily reported.
