Digital creative sector to contribute over RM30bil to GDP by 2025, Dewan Rakyat told

KUALA LUMPUR: The development of digital games, comics, animation and interactive media is expected to generate over RM30bil annually for the nation by 2025, says Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin.

The Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister said in 2019, the creative industry which includes creative digital development such as animation, games, comics, interactive media and others contributed RM29.4bil to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"It is targeted that this amount will rise to RM31.9bil by 2025," he said in reply to Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan (BN-Pontian) in the Dewan Rakyat on Monday (Dec 6).

He said the ministry had, through agencies such as MyCreative Ventures and Cendana, set aside RM11.1mil for several programmes to further develop the digital creative industry.

The amount included grants for the purchase of musical instruments and online streaming facilities, microcredit loans, as well as sponsorship of independent musicians, among others.

Zahidi said the National Film Development Corporation (Finas) also set aside RM38mil to fund creative content development through a number of programmes.

He noted that the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) had also implemented several programmes to provide youths with the opportunity to get into the industry.

These included the Global Online Workforce Programme (GLOW), the Premier Digital Tech Institutions Programmes (PDTI) and Content Development Manufacturing Digital Programme (Prisma EDP), he added.

At the school level, the LEVEL UP@Schools Programme had also been implemented to help in the development of digital games.

This was in addition to the Kre8tif!@Schools Programme that aimed to help students learn to produce simple animation.

So far, he said some 270,000 youths had benefited from these programmes.

To a supplementary question by Ahmad, Zahidi said 4G services will continue to operate while the national 5G service is under development.

He said this is to ensure that there would still be connectivity once 3G services are discontinued in the country.