Malaysia to woo startups with immigration policies

Bloomberg

When it comes to tech startup hubs in Southeast Asia, entrepreneurs sometimes look past Malaysia to the lure of Singapore’s vibrant financial centre or Indonesia’s attractiveness as the region’s largest economy.
They shouldn’t, said a former Microsoft Corp. executive who’s now in charge of driving the country’s digital economy. Policy makers are serious about developing the sector that created more than 170,000 new jobs and contributed 18.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2017, said Yasmin Mahmood, chief executive officer of government agency Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC).
MDEC’s initiatives to encourage entrepreneurs to set up shop in the country of 32 million people span new immigration policies and tax incentives, Yasmin said in Singapore. Malaysia grants a one-year visit pass for tech entrepreneurs based overseas and up to a decade of tax exemption for startups, including those that are fully foreign-owned, she said.
“We are open for the world to come and play,” said Yasmin, who held management positions in the Malaysian offices of Dell Corp. and Microsoft before joining MDEC in 2014. “The private sector is going to lead the digital economy and the government is going to be the wind beneath their wings.”
Such measures have helped technology companies generate total revenue of $13 billion in 2017, she said.
Still, Malaysia lags behind its neighbours in drawing investments. Singapore attracted $7.2 billion in tech startup capital from 2012 through September 2017, the most in Southeast Asia, according to CB Insights. Indonesia pulled in $4.6 billion, while Malaysia got $1.3 billion during the same period. There are some wins. CXS International, a workforce and talent analytics platform, relocated its headquarters from Norway to Malaysia, while Vickers Venture Partners opened office in Kuala Lumpur.