The Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC), a government agency under the purview of the Ministry of Digital of Malaysia, will introduce a new tax incentive for Malaysia Digital status companies and existing Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) status companies, local media theedgemarkets.com reported on Monday.

MDEC Chief Executive Officer Mahadhir Aziz said the tax incentive, to be announced in May, will be for digital initiatives in intellectual property (IP) and non-IP, and also in the form of investment tax allowance incentives, the report added.

“We have an amended tax incentive that will be announced in May 2024. This is something that we want to be able to take on and we will announce it together with the Ministry of Finance,” he was quoted as saying at a media briefing.

The Malaysian government has introduced has introduced Malaysia Digital as the new national strategic initiative to encourage and attract companies, talents and investment while enabling Malaysian businesses and people to play a leading part in the global digital revolution and digital economy, information from MDEC’s website showed.

Mahadhir said MDEC has facilitated MYR46.22 billion ($9.78 billion) in digital investments in 2023, exceeding its target of MYR30 billion by 54 percent. This was contributed by digital investments from 256 different companies, including Amazon Web Services, Siemens Energy and American Express.

From the investments, Mahadhir reported that 22,258 high-value jobs were created in 2023.

As for MDEC, the agency achieved revenue of MYR8.87 billion in 2023, exceeding its target of RM7.5 billion by 18 percent.

MDEC also facilitated MYR3.18 billion worth of digital exports in 2023, growing about 81 percent from 2021. These exports went to 17 countries led by Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

MDEC partners BMCC to bolster digital trade and economic cooperation between Malaysia and UK