BEIJING: The Malaysia-China Digital Economy Forum will be held in Kuala Lumpur on Oct 26 to shape the collaboration in the digital economy industry between the two countries, said Tan Sri Ong Ka Ting.
The chairman of the Malaysia-China Business Council (MCBC), who was in the Chinese capital for a meeting, said Chinese key players such as Huawei, Tencent and Alibaba would be giving an interesting picture of the digital economy in China.
“The success stories from these digital economy-related giants are the most authoritative voices from China to the world.
“Malaysia has a lot to learn from them, and we also wish they would be our strategic partner in the advancement of digital economy,” said Ong, who is also the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to China, at the half-day event co-organised by MCBC and Huawei. Huawei is a Chinese ICT solution provider company with 15 years of presence in Malaysia. Its Asia Pacific hub is located in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysian players, including the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), will also speak at the forum.
Ong was leading a delegation to Huawei’s exhibition centre in Beijing on Tuesday.
Huawei Malaysia’s vice-president Foo Fang Yong said every industry would go through a transformation as the market becomes increasingly empowered by digital economy.
Enterprises which fail to recognise the wave of digital economy risk being wiped out, he added.
Some 140 department stores, 260 supermarkets and 9,500 clothing stores were closed between 2012 and 2015 in China, but Alibaba’s online shopping platforms recorded transactions worth 91.2 billion yuan (RM56.3bil) last year during its one-day Nov 11 sale.
Huawei briefed the delegation on using ICT to offer smart home and safe city solutions, demonstrating that a smart digital nation is no longer a faraway dream.
Earlier, the delegation also visited Tencent’s Online Media Group, which is headed by S.Y. Lau, a Malaysian.
“Globalisation is not only about free movement of goods and services, but also free flow of ideas,” said Lau.
Tencent, which owns instant messenger service QQ and social media app WeChat, is the fourth largest Internet company in the world after Amazon, Google and Facebook.
By THO XIN YI
(Source: The Star, 21 September 2016)
