The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) is seeking to boost Malaysia’s digital economy by 2025, securing RM50 billion in investments.

The plans also include the creation of 50,000 jobs within the MSC Malaysia programme, set up by the Malaysian government to accelerate the growth of the nation’s digital economy.

The MDEC is looking to its Digital Investments Future5 (DIF5) Strategy to attract digital investments from abroad.

DIF5 is a five-year plan focused on generating investments and boosting Malaysia’s digital economy in line with the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint, or MyDIGITAL.

As well as securing RM50bn investments in the digital economy and generating thousands of jobs, by 2025 the strategy aims to attract 50 Fortune500 tech companies to the country and establish five unicorns.

According to Raymond Siva, Senior Vice President of Investment and Brand, MDEC: “We have all the necessary capabilities, capacities and facilities to drive Malaysia’s digital economy into high gear and with the Future5 Investment Strategy, we are further synergising our efforts and initiatives to push the nation forward towards achieving the goals set forth in the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDIGITAL).”

In addition, the main industry sectors classed as key drivers are agtech, healthtech, Islamic digital economy and fintech, cleantech, and edutech.

“These industries are based on the strategic national industries for digitalisation and have also been mapped to the national priority sectors,” MDEC stated.

“Digitalisation of these industries will have a high impact on investment, jobs, and contribution to GDP.”

In terms of tech, MDEC is focusing on cloud computing, data centre, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital content tools within the DIF5 strategy.

“Attracting and driving investments in five focus technologies are important to facilitate the growth of these [aforementioned] sectors,” MDEC added.

In addition, in terms of emerging technologies driving innovation, the key areas are blockchain, dronetech, edge computing, extended reality, and advanced robotics.

MDEC continued: “These will increase the economic complexity of the nation, and help develop new and existing economic clusters which in turn creates high value job opportunities, and extend domestic economic linkages.”