Tengku Zafrul: Nearly 70% of Malaysia’s RM225b approved investments focused on digital economy
14 Feb 2024
Almost 70% of Malaysia’s RM225 billion approved investments are in the digital economy, said Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz.
In a recent interview with US-based news network CNN, he explained that Malaysia has what it takes to power artificial intelligence (AI) and bring the whole ecosystem into the country.
“We have AI factories, that is what we call it now, instead of data centres, and we even had a visit from Nvidia Corporation, a US-based multinational technology company, which announced its keen interest to venture into Malaysia with other companies to support the advancement of AI.
“This is because AI will bring an increase in productivity,” he said.
Zafrul said while there are concerns about AI in general and its impact on society, it cannot be denied that AI would bring a better quality of life by enabling all sorts of professions to carry out work more efficiently.
“Jobs of the future may be very different given the advancement in technology, especially generative AI.
“With AI, there are many other job functions which will be involved. So, we need to ensure re-skilling and upskilling (of employees) to prepare for the new jobs of the future,” he said.
Last December, Nvidia expressed its willingness to support Malaysia’s aspiration of being among the top 20 countries in AI technology and has agreed to help develop the country’s AI ecosystem in terms of building a centre of excellence to facilitate AI learning and research, including creating Malaysia’s own AI cloud computing system.
On the proposal for some form of blanket minimum wage rise across Asean nations, Zafrul highlighted the importance of ensuring wages go up.
“If you look at Malaysia’s economic fundamentals, our inflation is manageable. The inflation rate in 2023 recorded about 2.5% and unemployment continues to be low at about 3.3%.
“Based on these fundamentals, we must ensure that whatever increase in wages is linked to increasing productivity and that is why I am stressing investments in the green and digital economy because it increases the economic complexity of a country and its industries,” he said.
Zafrul noted that two years ago, Malaysia increased its minimum wage and is now discussing the concept of progressive wages.
“This can only be achieved if we increase productivity. So, wages need to be linked to productivity or else companies will find it difficult to implement an increase in compensation,” he said.
Source: Bernama
