LONDON, June 16 — Malaysia has derived various high-impact benefits over just a few days through the investment mission organised in conjunction with the London Tech Week (LTW) 2023.

Besides signing collaboration and investment commitments worth RM8.3 billion, Malaysia also played a major role in offering itself as the liaison to connect the digital economy in Asean and Europe.

Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil described the mission to London as successful and that produced encouraging results.

"We have achieved a lot as well as acquired new findings, including insights on challenges faced by the digital economy sector in the aspects of innovation and new technology,” said Fahmi to Bernama.

He further said that to continue the success momentums, there are several matters that need to be refined and improved, among them, enhancing and increasing the appropriate infrastructure.

Emphasis will also be on achieving 100 per cent coverage and expanding the 5G services, or at least achieve 80 per cent.

Besides that, he said a few acts are proposed to be enacted to attract more companies and international players to invest and to be based in Malaysia.

"With this, Malaysia’s digital golden decade can be achieved immediately, hence, making Malaysia as the Digital Tiger of Asia,” he said.

During LTW, various issues were discussed by the global technology players, among them, challenges in the digital sector including artificial intelligence and issues involving data as well as cyber security.

"The Malaysian delegation also open up opportunities for local companies to the European market through the United Kingdom (UK). Apart from that, we will bring companies from the UK to invest in Malaysia.

"We hope the LTW series and other programmes next year would generate more investment opportunities,” said Fahmi.

According to him, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to be signed by UK soon, would provide opportunities to enhance cooperation between the two countries, especially in the digital economy, thus increasing the country’s economic growth.

Meanwhile, in a statement released in Kuala Lumpur, the Ministry of Communications and Digital welcomed the proposal by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on the Cyber Security Bill that must be drafted immediately to enable Malaysia to face the challenges in the digital era and address cyber security threats.

This included amendments to the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (Act 709) which will examine the mandatory notification of companies or data users to the Personal Data Protection Department (JPDP) in the event of a data breach, which is now in the final phase before being brought to the Cabinet and subsequently to Parliament. — Bernama