KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 — The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has rolled out the Micro and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) e-commerce campaign, an initiative under the National Economic Recovery Plan (PENJANA).

The campaign kicks-off today and ends on Sept 30.

In a statement today, MDEC said the MSME e-commerce campaign aims to encourage e-commerce adoption by local businesses to help widen their market reach. 

"MSMEs and local businesses wishing to participate in the campaign may register via www.go-ecommerce.my/PENJANA,” it said.

The agency said that the government has allocated RM70 million under PENJANA to implement the  campaign to facilitate local businesses in sustaining their operations and gradually enhancing their productivity. 

The campaign involves 10 e-commerce partners, including Boost, Foodpanda, Grab, Lazada, Maybank, Shopee and Touch ‘n Go eWallet, and more e-commerce partners are expected to participate.

Over 145,000 MSMEs are expected to benefit from the e-commerce onboarding training, seller subsidy and sales support, it said.

MDEC’s chief executive officer Surina Shukri said the digital shift to e-commerce will help future-proof the economy in the new normal post-COVID-19, where an increasing number of consumers opt for online shopping instead of visiting physical stores. 

"Shifting to e-commerce will help MSMEs reduce operation costs, improve agility and be more responsive to new opportunities, allowing them to reach new customers within existing markets and expand to new markets,” she said. 

Surina said with the uptake in online retail sales, the Southeast Asian e-commerce market is looking to be worth about US$153 billion by 2025.

Aside from the MSME e-commerce campaign, the government has also allocated another RM70 million to implement the Shop Malaysia Online initiative, the second e-commerce initiative under PENJANA that will run for two months from August this year. 

The Shop Malaysia Online initiative is designed to spur economic recovery by stimulating online consumption through digital vouchers for the consumers. — Bernama