KKIP good for digital free trade zone

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KOTA KINABALU: The Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP) could become a digital free trade zone (DFTZ) for e-commerce and online businesses, in line with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0.

It already had a strong foundation with existing businesses and capacity, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Raymond Tan Shu Kiah.

When met by reporters at the Industry 4.0 and DFTZ outreach programme yesterday, Raymond said KKIP would be a good ground for implementation, as business is already there.

“In order for Industry 4.0 to work, you must have the right place, the right foundation. It is basically a process of change, where business can grow bigger and go global.

“We are pretty close to achieving that because you cannot look at this whole development right from the very bottom. You must look at what business has already been developed in KKIP.

“There are 280 existing operators of various businesses. They are going slow, but in our revolution of a changed process, once they get into internet business, we will be able to raise all 280 businesses to a higher level,” he said.

Raymond, who is also Minister of Industrial Development, added that internet businesses and e-commerce are things that some of us were already engaged with, thus emphasising the importance of bringing such business operators together.

He further said it is important to introduce the DFTZ in order to encourage operators to go digital and be more aggressively into e-commerce.

“It should generate much more excitement and I’m looking at how we can enhance the internet service in KKIP. It needs to be enhanced with the right infrastructure of internet speed and accessibility.

“If we can enhance the infrastructure focused on a cluster of e-commerce operators in KKIP, I think that would, in a very short time, encourage more operators, entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to be engaged in driving industry 4.0.

“What we need to focus on is capacity building to encourage them to embrace Industry 4.0. Sabah does not want to be left out,” he added.

Earlier, SME Corporation Malaysia chairman Tan Sri Dr Mohamed Al Amin Abdul Majid said SMEs should not fear the changes needed, but instead be bold enough to make the changes.

He advised operators and entrepreneurs to start with the aim of solving an existing problem in the production process, as well as to approach training institutions such as the Penang Skills Development Centre (PSDC) and German-Malaysia Institute (GMI).

Mohamed added that with the DFTZ, SME Corp Malaysia aspired to double the export growth rate of SME goods to reach US$38 billion, create 60,000 jobs and facilitate US$65 billion worth of goods movement, all by 2025.