MDeC putting the IoT pieces together for Malaysia

Malaysia’s national ICT custodian Multimedia Development Corp (MDeC) plans to roll out initiatives next year to help accelerate the Internet of Things industry here.

According to the vice president of its Infotech division, Norhizam Abdul Kadir, one idea MDeC is considering is providing incentives for local board makers and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) players to extend their offerings to include low-volume, high-mix prototypes.

“Ideally, the plan is to help transform these players into agile or prototype manufacturers. We have agile manufacturers in Malaysia, but [the industry] is a lot bigger in China,” he told Digital News Asia (DNA) in Kuala Lumpur recently.

“Currently, if you are a designing an IoT product, your first order is probably going to be only 100 units. Try sending that to an EMS player, and the cost for one unit will probably be in the thousands of ringgit.

“That’s why most IoT players go to China instead – and that leads to an outflow of funds, and also a potential outflow of intellectual property,” he added.

In July, Malaysia rolled out its National IoT Strategic Roadmap, which the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation said would serve a guiding document to move the country into a regional IoT hub.

At the time, the ministry said it expects the IoT industry would contribute RM9.5 billion to the country’s gross national income (GNI) by 2020, and RM42.5 billion by 2025.

To position Malaysia as a regional IoT hub, Norhizam argued that it would be important for the country to grow its number of agile manufacturers.

“The IoT ecosystem in Malaysia is not robust yet. As a government agency, we want to ensure that the ecosystem is complete and everything is happening in Malaysia,” he told DNA on the sidelines of the IoT Malaysia: Solving Problems and Capturing Value industry event MDeC had facilitated.