Malaysian Exporters Urged To Explore Govt Incentives, Assistance - MATRADE

KUALA TERENGGANU (Terengganu, Malaysia), Nov 23 (Bernama) – Exporting companies in Malaysia have been urged to explore government incentives and financial assistance provided via the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE). Construction and Business Services Division Director Rusiah Mohamed said this includes the Services Export Fund, which provides reimbursable grants and soft loans to Malaysian service providers to help them in conducting business activities and venturing into international markets. “Grants and loans which are disbursed can go up to a maximum of RM3 million (US$ = RM4.20) per company for the five-year period from 2015-2020. “MATRADE also provides Market Development Grants (MDG) of up to RM200,000 per company for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), professional service providers, commerce and industry associations, chambers of commerce and professional bodies in Malaysia to ease their financial burden in participating in export promotion activities overseas. “Such activities include participation in international trade exhibitions, trade missions, conferences and listings of products in supermarkets overseas,” she said during her talk at the inaugural Construction Industry and Business Services Seminar organised by MATRADE’s Construction and Business Services Division here Thursday. The seminar was aimed at informing service exporters in the East Coast about market expansion opportunities in the construction and business services industries overseas through the support of and activities organised by MATRADE. The seminar's participants comprised representatives of more than 50 companies from various business services-related industries in Terengganu, Pahang and Kelantan. Rusiah also said that MATRADE has introduced the eTrade programme to assist Malaysian entrepreneurs and exporters to export online. “Through this programme, online merchants will be given financial assistance in the form of e-vouchers to list their products on renowned e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba.com, eBay, Amazon, TradeIndia, minebizs.com and Avana Facebook,” she said. Meanwhile, MATRADE Eastern Region Director Zamani Mat Zain said exporters need to register as a MATRADE member and be actively involved in the export sector. “They can register for free via MATRADE’s website, after which they will be able to get information on trades, business, economy and MATRADE’s programmes in Malaysia and overseas faster through their registered emails,” he added. MATRADE is Malaysia's national trade promotion agency established to assist Malaysian exporters to develop and expand their export markets. -- BERNAMA