Malaysia to Advance Technological Improvements

(Marketingmagazine.com.my) – Malaysia aims to advance technological improvements with commercial potential to help drive local industries ahead of their competitors.

To achieve that Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) Chief Executive Officer Datuk Azman Mahmud has 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, today.

Datuk 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, the MIDA CEO 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 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.

They are mainly in pharmaceutical, chemical, healthcare, biofuel, machinery and automotive sectors.

The MIDA CEO was speaking at a gathering attended by industry players including local companies, Chulia Facilities Management and Gaharu Technologies, both of which signed a memorandum of understanding with Nottingham MyResearch.

The MoU signed between Chulia Facilities Management and Nottingham MyResearch is related to the development of a medical device while Gaharu Technologies’ project involves tea products, whereby research for both projects will be undertaken by the university.

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