THE digital economy’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) will easily reach 20% by year-end from 19.1% in the current Covid-19 pandemic environment, said Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).

Business digital adoption director Muhundhan Kamarapullai said its contribution to the GDP had been already quite significant even prior to the pandemic at more than 18% and now it had moved up to 19.1%.

“From a digital economy standpoint, we have gained quite a bit in terms of the acceleration of work done in the country.

“From an economic perspective, the acceleration has been tremendous in some areas such as e-commerce and logistics. Many of these areas have a high demand at present due to digital demand,” he said during a webinar organised by Cyberview Sdn Bhd titled “Surviving a Pandemic: What It Means to Digitally Transform Your Business” today.

Other panellists at the seminar were NEXPlatform chief strategy officer Stephen Lim and Moovby chief executive officer Nik Muhammad Amin.

From the supply and demand perspective, Muhundhan said Malaysian start-ups and technology companies had benefitted from a supply standpoint due to the acceleration in digital demand.

He said there was a lot of opportunity for them to grow and innovate as competition becomes greater and opportunities increase.

“Therefore, today we can see a lot of start-ups coming forward with different types of business models and being more innovative because they see (potential) growth and this is the right time for them to grow,” he said.

On the demand side, Muhundhan said although demand had increased, it was still at an infancy stage. 

“For example, when MDEC organised a digital summit last year, we were targeting 100,000 views and would be happy with this. But when we concluded the summit, we had touched more than one million viewers within just three days of the event. That tells us there is an increase in interest among the traditional businesses.

“So the businesses understand that digital is important and they need to do something about it.

“However, the challenge lies in identifying how to get onboard the digital journey, what they need to do, where to start and where the opportunities are in digital,” said Muhundhan.

He said from a digital adoption standpoint for traditional businesses, there was still a lot more work to do.

“The excitement is there and, from MDEC’s standpoint, now we must put in the right structure and help them,” he said. – Bernama, February 25, 2021.