Tax incentives for global business services in Iskandar

Iskandar celebration: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak placing an Iskandar Malaysia’s 10 anniversary logo. Looking on are Iskandar Regional Development Authority chief executive Datuk Ismail Ibrahim (left) and Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Mohamed Khaled Nordin. See page 2

Firms can apply for special Medini tax support packages

JOHOR BARU: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has announced special tax incentives for global business services (GBS) operating in Iskandar Malaysia.

Under the tax incentives, companies that qualify can apply for special Medini tax support packages while employees, who qualify, can enjoy a personal income tax rate of 15% in Iskandar Malaysia.

The GBS sector is expected to attract some RM6.5bil in investments and create over 14,000 job opportunities, mostly high-income employments, by 2020.

“Iskandar Malaysia continues to be the location that attracts foreign investors and one of the sectors with great potential to generate high-income jobs is GBS.

“I hope this tax benefit will help turn Iskandar Puteri into a hub for GBS,” he said during the Iskandar Malaysia’s 10th year anniversary celebration here.

He also singled out Courts Asia Ltd, a new investor under the GBS programme that will be spearheaded by Khazanah Nasional Bhd.

Singapore mainboard-listed Courts Asia, one of South-East Asia’s leading electrical, IT and furniture retailers, will be setting up its regional shared service centre here.

i2M Ventures Sdn Bhd (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Khazanah) managing director Zulfiqar Zainuddin said the new centre looked to create high-value and knowledge-based employment opportunities here from the next five years.

“Courts Solution Centre will drive Iskandar Malaysia to new heights with the creation of high-value knowledge-based jobs while leveraging on Iskandar Puteri’s strategic location as the best nearshore to Singapore,” he said.

He added that Courts Asia’s presence would accelerate the development of the business services sector, promoting high-valued jobs in the area of knowledge and business process outsourcing such as customer credit evaluation and system development.

The centre would be among other companies such as Frost & Sullivan, Brandt International, Vistra Global and Odinsoft operating under the GBS Iskandar community.

Separately, on Bank Negara’s measures to tackle the weakening ringgit, Najib said that they have conducted a study and came up with six steps to help create an optimistic market.

“I believe that Bank Negara as a regulator is well-versed with monetary policies of the country and exchange rate management.

“The measures should be able to strengthen the currency. Don’t be negative. When it comes to currency, there is a lot of factors in play including factors beyond our control, thus we just tackle the internal factors,” he said.