KUALA LUMPUR: The low-speed and high-price of broadband is a barrier to the development and adoption of digital technology in Malaysia.
According to Economic Outlook 2019 report released by Ministry of Finance today, rapidly changing technologies and low adoption remain a challenge for Malaysia, especially for businesses.
“At the moment, Malaysia is ranked fifth after Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei and Myanmar in average 4G speeds in Southeast Asia. Moreover the adoption index by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is below other peer countries in this region,” the report said.
The report said it is imperative for Malaysia to transform itself at an accelerated pace and embrace advanced digital technologies, especially by businesses.
With concerted efforts, the daily operations could be further improved by investing in conducive ecosystems as well as soft and hard infrastructures, it said.
The report also said that the value of Malaysia’s overall cybersecurity services which is expected to reach US$632.6 million by 2021 is a new potential growth area to be explored further.
It added that while the improvement of broadband services to accelerate Malaysia’s development in the digital economy is vital, there is also a need to have a comprehensive regulatory framework in cybersecurity.
“There is room for improvement, especially in developing best practices and guidelines to manage security as well as cloud security services in Malaysia.
“The government also needs to address the issue of a critical talent gap in areas such as digital forensic, security administration and security analyst,” the report said.
It said a safe and sound ecosystem is crucial to establish the trust of customers and users to enhance e-commerce and e-payment platforms further.
The report also said in Malaysia, smartphones remain the most popular means for users to access the internet enabling the country to attain a mobile-oriented society.
“In 2017 there were 35.3 million mobile broadband subscriptions as compared to 2.6 million fixed broadband subscriptions,” it said.
The development of digital technology is expected to drive e-commerce’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to surpass RM170 billion by 2020 and further projected to reach RM400 billion by 2025. – Bernama
