Malaysia To Advance Technological Improvements, Says MIDA

KUALA LUMPUR, April 6 (Bernama) -- Malaysia aims to advance technological improvements with commercial potential to help drive local industries ahead of their competitors, said Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA). To achieve that, MIDA Chief Executive Officer Azman Mahmud urged companies to undertake research collaborations to sustain their competitiveness. "Research and development (R&D) and innovation are important to Malaysia's wellbeing and future sustainability. "They are the key factors in developing and applying new technologies that are crucial to the competitiveness of many industries, in the face of the tremendously changing industrial landscape," he said in his welcoming remarks during a networking reception here, Tuesday. Azman said it was crucial for companies to reassess and realign their business strategies to adapt to the current challenges of doing business. He added that evidence had shown that there was a strong correlation between R&D spending and market share control. International companies such as Apple, Google and Samsung, which spend heavily on R&D, are now the world's market leaders in their respective industries, he said. In Malaysia, Azman said spending on R&D was gaining momentum but was still relatively low at 1.13 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), against top research-intensive countries such as Sweden at 3.6 per cent, South Korea (3.5 per cent), Finland (3.5 per cent) and Japan (3.4 per cent). "While there is a noticeable increase in R&D spending, particularly in manufacturing-led sectors, there is still much room for R&D activities in Malaysia as this sector has not yet reached the full level of maturity and is poised for future growth. "In fact the National Policy on Science, Technology and Innovation 2013-2020 aims for Malaysia to achieve R&D intensity of at least 2.0 per cent (of GDP) by 2020," he added. Todate, MIDA has approved 165 R&D projects with total investments of US$616.05 million (RM2.41 billion). These comprise 71 contract R&D, 54 in-house R&D, 26 approved R&D companies and 14 R&D status companies. MIDA is the government's principal agency to oversee and drive investment into the manufacturing and services sectors in Malaysia. --BERNAMA