PUTRAJAYA, Nov 29 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today announced allowance increases for Digital Economic Centres (PEDi) managers and their assistants.

Starting from January, PEDi centre managers will receive RM2,500 instead of RM2,000 while assistants will receive RM2,000 instead of RM1,500, Anwar said during the PEDi Conference 2023.

"Do you really agree with me adding extra duties for PEDi?

"If you agree, we will increase from RM2,000 to RM2,500 and for assistants, an increase from RM1,500 to RM2,000,” he said during his speech officiating the event at Putrajaya International Convention Centre.

The extra duties he was referring to was the monitoring of PEDi centres and for managers to provide reports to the government in order to expand the programme further, especially for youths, and to introduce applications.

He teased the crowd, saying that they had won his heart with their enthusiastic response. He told them that Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil had initially wanted the allowance increase to begin in April.

Anwar also affirmed his commitment to ensuring that each state assembly centre in the country will have its own PEDi centre.

"PEDi is a very important strategy and we must ensure that it has more results,” he said.

An allocation of RM25 million is earmarked for this purpose from the Budget 2024, he added.

Last month, national news agency Bernama reported that the Communications and Digital Ministry (KKD) had received an allocation of RM25 million to empower the PEDi centres in all state constituencies as part of the efforts to support small businesses to sell their products online.

Following that, Fahmi said his ministry will make several announcements regarding the new direction of the programme during the PEDi Awards Day celebration.

PEDi centres originated as community internet centres but was rebranded by former prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob as Keluarga Malaysia (Malaysian Family) PEDi as part of efforts to move towards digitalisation.