Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar and Minister of Economy announced a grand plan today to build Malaysia into the largest integrated circuit (IC) design park in Southeast Asia. This plan is not just empty talk, the government plans to take practical actions to attract global technology companies and investors. They proposed a series of very attractive incentive measures, including tax cuts, subsidies, and even free work visas, with the aim of making Malaysia a true magnet for the technology industry.

According to Reuters, the Malaysian government's ambitious goal is to make the country the center of Southeast Asia's digital industry by 2030 and hopes to rank in the top 20 of the Global Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Rankings.

Although Malaysia is already an important participant in the global semiconductor industry, with approximately 13% of global packaging and testing capacity, Prime Minister Anwar stated in his opening speech at the Kuala Lumpur 20 (KL20) summit that Malaysia needs to move from a focus on back-end packaging and testing to higher value front-end industries such as chip design. Building an IC design park is an important step towards this goal.

Anwar said that this design park has received strong support from the central Selangor State and will be opened to world-class companies as major tenants. The Malaysian government also plans to cooperate with global enterprises such as British chip manufacturer Arm, but the details have not been revealed.

In addition, at the Kuala Lumpur 20 Summit, Malaysia also proposed new policies to support startups. Prime Minister Anwar mentioned that the National Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Malaysian Treasury Holding National Investment Corporation, will establish a fund focused on investing in local companies with high innovation and growth potential, with an initial investment amount of 1 billion Malaysian Ringgit.

Minister of Economy Raffles also announced a series of incentive programs for foreign venture capital companies, technology entrepreneurs, and unicorn companies at the summit, including providing office space subsidies, exemption of employment permit fees, relocation services, and preferential corporate tax rates. The aim is to attract unicorn companies from around the world to invest in Malaysia, creating more high skilled and high-value employment opportunities for the country and cultivating necessary talent reserves for future entrepreneurs and senior leaders in the technology industry.