Matrade urges SMEs to capitalise on Msia’s position as trade nation

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia External Trade Development Corp (Matrade) wants Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to capitalise on its position as the 15th easiest country to do business based on World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2019.

Matrade chief executive officer Mohd Shahreen Zainooreen Madras said though SME represents 98 per cent of the domestic commerce landscape, only 18 per cent are actually exporting their business.

“Similarly, the local mid-tier companies (MTCs) that comprises one per cent of Malaysian business establishments contribute about 30 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP),” he said in a media briefing today.

“However the current export growth of these MTCs stood at 6.8 per cent and there is plenty of room for improvements,” he said.

Mohd Shahreen noted that Malaysia has seen an uptrend in export growth since 2016 and he is cautiously optimistic the trend will sustain in 2019.

“We saw an export growth of some 20 per cent in 2017, which was great but this came from a low base in 2016. As of October 2018, we have seen a growth of five to six per cent and though smaller, this came from a high base in 2016,” he said.

“Given the momentum and Malaysia’s positioning in the World Bank’s report and its existing trade relations with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and China, we think it is high time for SMEs and MTCs to capitalise on this,” he said.

Matrade expects to roll out 437 Exporters Development Programmes (EDP) in 2019 to help small and medium enterprises (SME) achieve their export potential.

At 437, the EDP takes the lion’s share of MATRADE’s total 477 programmes comprising of both EDP and Export Promotion (EP) activities in 2019.

When asked about funding for the programmes, Mohd Shahreen said Matrade is collaborating with various other government agencies in making the programs happen.

“As you know, the government do have lesser funds than it had prior to this and in order to run all this programmes, we did a lot of coordinating between the various agencies,” he said.

The EDP will focused on the country’s key trading partners in Asean, European Union, Northeast Asia, West Asia and Americas while focusing electrical and electronics (E&E), oil and gas (O&G), construction, machinery and equipment (M&E), services, halal, food and beverage (F&B) among others.

• New Straits Times