Cyberjaya, 10 March 2021: The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) is proud to declare its support of the move made by real estate technology group Juwai IQI, to build a data and technology team with more than 1,000 employees in Kuala Lumpur. To be located at Millerz Square, the company plans to move in during Q1, 2022. Fitting out the space has already begun.
The new job roles are digital in nature and are expected to include roles including platform and mobile app developers, data scientists and social network community specialists. Juwai IQI’s move is in tandem with the Malaysian government’s MyDIGITAL initiative to attract 70 billion Ringgit (US$17.3 billion) in digitalisation investment by 2025. The total of 1,000 jobs offered by the company is also in line with MyDIGITAL’s promise to create 500,000 jobs by 2025.
“MDEC looks forward to Juwai IQI's plans to make Malaysia its tech hub. It's a clear endorsement of investors’ confidence in Malaysia and a testament to the high level of digital skills and capabilities of our country's workforce. The skills demanded today is something MDEC is closely keeping tabs on. Our recent analysis among various job search sites, namely LinkedIn, Jobstreet, Monster, Indeed and Jobstore, show an increasing demand for digital jobs. A total of 47,000 tech-related jobs were advertised in all 5 portals up to February 2021,” said Surina Shukri, CEO of MDEC.
MDEC’s initiatives under the pillar of Digital Jobs and Skills, have impacted more than 2 million Malaysians from the year 2016 to Q3 2020. The agency has reached out to support the workforce in accessing skilling and income opportunities through programmes and initiatives which include the Digital Skills Training Directory, Global Online Workforce (GLOW) as well as Go-eCommerce.
“We are making Kuala Lumpur our headquarters for global research and development in part because of the warm welcome and encouragement MDEC has provided. We are excited to play a small part in the further development of Malaysia as the digital hub of the ASEAN region.
“While we also have a technology team in Shanghai, the base in Kuala Lumpur will give us roots in one of the deepest pools of technology talent in the world,” said Kashif Ansari, Juwai IQI Co-Founder and Group CEO.
On the digital investment front, Malaysia has attracted RM345 billion investments to date, creating close to 185,000 jobs. In 2020 alone, new investments by pure-play technology companies amounted to RM3.98 billion. Meanwhile, new investments recorded by digital services companies stood at RM2.01 billion. These investments created approximately 9,000 new jobs. Juwai IQI is nominating Kuala Lumpur their headquarters for global research and development (R&D), and will continue to maintain another team in Shanghai, which is a base for R&D for China.
The agency has been working with the government, industry leaders and the private sector to increase the reach of digital capabilities, platforms and infrastructure in the rural areas. The government has pledged RM12 billion to RM15 billion in investments, into cloud computing service providers for the next five years, with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Telekom Malaysia (TM) already given conditional contracts to develop and manage hyperscale data centres and hybrid cloud services in the country. These projects, a part of the MyDIGITAL blueprint, serve to make Malaysia a key e-commerce player via telecommunications and infrastructure that is better, cheaper and faster.
“MDEC lauds Juwai IQI’s move to create a technology hub in Malaysia, as it reaffirms Malaysia as Heart of Digital ASEAN. MDEC as the agency leading the digital economy forward will continue to focus on attracting and nurturing investors to ensure shared prosperity for the many as we strive towards realising Malaysia 5.0. Our agency’s emphasis on human-centred initiatives that benefit the many, not the few, as well as Juwai IQI’s creation of jobs, takes us one step closer to achieving the goals set out in the MyDIGITAL initiative,” said MDEC Chairman Datuk Wira Dr. Hj. Rais Hussin Mohamed Ariff.
MDEC has attracted several leading digital companies to set up their regional presence in Malaysia. These include PCCW Solutions (a leading IT services provider in Hong Kong, mainland China and South-East Asia), ThunderSoft (Beijing-headquartered) and Clarivate (a global leader in providing solutions to accelerate the lifecycle of innovation).
This is a testament to Malaysia’s solid fundamentals and ability to meet investor requirements such as having a diversified, multilingual and digitally-skilled talent pool; a vibrant ecosystem of startups and mature digital tech companies and ready infrastructure.
“Malaysia is fast becoming one of the most important technology hubs in Asia. Malaysia has a much larger workforce than Singapore, universal English proficiency and far-sighted government support. Technology companies like ours are expected to make up 22.6 percent of Malaysia’s GDP by 2025.
“Juwai IQI is committed to helping lead the next wave of digital transformation. We are starting in Malaysia and expanding to ASEAN and the rest of Asia. Asia leads the world in mobile users, digital penetration, internet users and in the penetration of superapps like WeChat, Gojek and Grab. From its position at the heart of ASEAN, Malaysia has what it takes to be the digital heart of Asia,” said Georg Chmiel, Juwai IQI Co-Founder and Group Executive Chairman.
Malaysia’s unique propositions have caused it to be ranked 2nd in Asean and 26th globally in the recent IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2020. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has also ranked Malaysia 34 out the top 40 countries in its Network Readiness Report 2020. In addition, The World Bank Digital Adoption Index 2020 noted how Malaysia outperformed its peers in East Asia and the Pacific regions for digital adoption capabilities.
About Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)
Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) is a government agency under the purview of the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia Malaysia entrusted to lead Malaysia's digital economy forward.
Incorporated in 1996 to oversee the development of the MSC Malaysia initiative, MDEC's primary mandate today is to accelerate the growth of digitally skilled Malaysians, digitally powered businesses and digital investments in Malaysia. MDEC is focused on creating inclusive, high-quality growth through the nationwide digitalization initiatives that are in line with the Government’s Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 and firmly establishing Malaysia as the Heart of Digital ASEAN.
#LetsBuildTogether #DigitalMalaysiaForward
To find out more about MDEC’s Digital Economy initiatives, please visit us at www.mdec.my or follow us on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyMDEC/
Twitter: @mymdec
About Juwai IQI
Juwai IQI is the Asian real estate technology group that empowers residents of Asia to become residents of the world, transacted more than 17,000 properties in 2020, engages 5.5 million monthly active users, and advertises US$4 trillion of property from 111 countries every year. The company offers real estate marketers an end-to-end marketing and sales solution that integrates its super-app, its IQI global network of more than 15,000 real estate agents, and its market-leading property marketplaces, which are the number one Chinese international real estate portal (Juwai.com) and the first Asia-wide portal for global property (Juwai.asia). Follow Juwai IQI on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and visit https://www.juwaiiqi.com/.
Contact:
Dashika Gnaneswaran [email protected]
Simon Yap [email protected]
