The government today unveiled plans to set up new offices in China and Saudi Arabia to promote its eight-year-old Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and seek out new business deals to bolster growth in the high-tech zone.

Information and communications technology (ICT) sales in the MSC, launched in 1996 as Asia's answer to California's Silicon Valley, hit over RM5 billion last year, of which RM1.2 billion were exported, said Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Abdullah said the goverment would leverage on its chairmanship in the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the the 117-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), as well as strong ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), to secure new deals.

"I am pleased to say that we have already won several international contracts in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Myanmar and Iran, among others," he said before chairing his first meeting of the MSC blue-ribbon panel of international advisors.

"We plan to accelerate the roll-out of products and services produced by MSC companies to the global market through stronger and more targeted marketing efforts."

MDC overseas offices

Abdullah said the Multimedia Development Corporation, which oversees development in the hub south of Kuala Lumpur, would set up offices in China's Dalian province and in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia by the end of the year.

He said this would open up opportunities for local small and medium-sized technology firms to access the international markets and boost the country's ICT exports.

"Malaysia's ICT market is expected to reach a value of 10.49 billion dollars in 2007. This year alone, total IT spending in Malaysia is estimated to be worth 2.5 billion dollars," he said.

Malaysia's ICT industry's 8.3 percent annual growth surpassed the global average of 6.2 percent and the country has some 9.4 million Internet users, nearly 175,000 broadband subscribers and more than 12.4 million cellular subscribers, he said.

Abdullah said research and development expenditure in the MSC reached RM419 million.

There are some 1,000 firms now operating in the hub and a total of 19,000 new jobs were created but he said the MSC's strong growth had led to a shortage of researchers, technology experts and skilled knowledge workers in medicine, engineering and other ICT-related fields.

'Brain gain' programme

The government is mapping out a "brain gain" programme with proper policies and incentives to woo Malaysian expertise and foreigners to the country, he said.

"We cannot succeed in attracting knowledge workers without also making an effort to provide them with an environment that allows them to flourish," he said.

"In terms of opportunities, many new and exciting areas of research including biotechnology and its confluence with ICT will be funded and explored. More attention will also be given to nurture and develop the creative content industry."

Abdullah said his first meeting with the MSC advisory panel would focus on using technology to drive socio-economic development and to create an environment to grow MSC companies into global entities.

Thirteen MSC advisors, including Silicon Graphics Inc. chairman Bob Bishop and Infosys Technologies Ltd chairman N R Narayana Murthy, as well as 18 representatives are attending the two-day annual meeting to assess progress and chart new direction.

The MSC was developed by former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who retired last October after 22 years in power, as part of a plan to turn Malaysia into a developed nation by 2020.

It has moved into its second development phase spanning 2004 to 2010, which involves setting up "cyber-cities" throughout Malaysia and linking the MSC to other cyber-cities worldwide.