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Budget 2026 puts the challenge of Malaysia’s productivity growth front and centre, with a focus on raising productivity through innovation, digital transformation, and workforce upskilling. But productivity ultimately depends on people: the skills, capabilities, and opportunities that shape the workforce of the future. So is Malaysia building the right kind of human capital that can raise productivity and competitiveness? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Mohd Safuan Mohd Zairi, Chief Ecosystem Officer of Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology and Innovation (MRANTI).
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00:00Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our conversation
00:22about Malaysia's innovation and digital transformation agenda as set out under budget
00:292026 to meaningfully raise productivity and competitiveness. Beyond the rhetoric, what
00:36is needed to turn innovation into real productivity gains? Joining me on the show to discuss this
00:43further is Mohamad Safwan Mohamad Zairi, who is the Chief Ecosystem Officer of Maranti,
00:48which stands for Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology and Innovation. Safwan, thank
00:55you so much for joining me on the show today. So we looked at budget 2026 specifically and in it,
01:02there is a clear focus about driving productivity through innovation and digitalisation. I'm
01:08wondering how you're reading this focus. Is it a continuation of what's been said before or does
01:14it show any kind of shift in the way Malaysia is approaching the productivity growth challenge?
01:20Okay. Hi, Melissa. Thank you very much for, you know, bringing Maranti onto your show.
01:28I believe that coming back to your question, budget 2026 came at a very crucial moment. The productivity
01:36growth is Malaysia's make or break challenge here. It is going to determine in terms of whether we stay
01:42competitive in the region or we're going to fall behind. And the good news is the budget 2026 shows
01:48that Malaysia is beginning to treat innovation, not as a buzzword, but like a true engine for
01:56productivity and competitiveness. So again, at Maranti, our mission is to accelerate technology
02:06commercialisation and the budget 2026 further amplifies the mandate by embedding innovation and
02:14digitalisation at the heart of Malaysia's productivity drives. Okay. So when we think
02:20about Maranti's role and you said that, you know, looking towards innovation as being more beyond a
02:27buzzword, what are the right levers specifically if we were to focus on boosting productivity growth? Are we
02:36thinking about is it tech adoption? Is it upskilling? Is it regulation? Is it R&D? What do you think at some point?
02:46Okay, excellent. But before I answer that question, I do want to highlight that the budget 2026,
02:53that it aligns closely with what was launched recently by the YB Minister of Mosley, which is the
03:00RDAIS roadmap, which is research development, innovation, commercialisation and economy roadmap.
03:06This is being produced by our Academy of Science Malaysia. And coming back closer to what you asked,
03:12it lays out three critical pillars, governance, talent, as well as funding in order to make innovation a
03:18productivity engine. And I think if you look in terms of the the levels, so to speak, whether it's a
03:27technology, R&D, skills or regulation, there's no one answer. The beauty is that the answer, the right
03:36answer is all of the world. And they must move together and in unison as well. Yeah. So when we
03:45speak about governance, we speak about investment and talent as well. And these are the things that was
03:50mentioned under the RDAIS roadmap. And I want to spend a bit more time talking about this, because
03:58governance provide coherence, right? And I think that in order to see whether the roadmap is being
04:05supported by the government is to see where does the power lies in terms of who's chairing this. And
04:12I can see that, you know, the involvement of the National Science Council, as well as the Economic
04:17Action Council, both shared by the Prime Minister, with participation by senior government leaders.
04:22So I think this reinforces oversight and importance of innovation to drive productivity. Yeah. So that
04:28we want to make sure that R&D is closely tied to national mission and outcomes, not just inputs.
04:34And I think we need to also speak about investment. Yeah. Investment supplies the fuel. And I think,
04:42and you can see that whilst it is something that we celebrate that the gross expenditure on R&D has
04:48has rose by 1% compared to 2022. And business expenditure on R&D has doubled since 2020. But
04:58the fact of the matter is, this is nowhere in terms of when we are comparing what other advanced countries
05:04are actually doing in order to boost innovation, whether in sense of talent, regulation and skill. Yeah.
05:11And you mentioned also about skill, talent. Yeah. So you look at Budget 2026, it introduced a lot of
05:18AI and cybersecurity training deductions. So this is great. Plus, I think there's 3 billion from HRD
05:25Corp in order to boost further trainings in technology as well as new energy sectors. So these are all
05:32good news for the ecosystem. And I think that one of the things that you also highlighted is about
05:41regulatory support. I want to touch a bit more later when we go into a bit, when we discuss about
05:47most these national technology innovation sandbox or NTIS. So I think that will link up in terms of the
05:53investment, the investment, the talent bid, as well as the regulation bid on how through the sandbox
06:00program, the NTIS, our agency, Maranti, have supported close to over 200 innovative products,
06:07projects, sorry, commercialized 77 R&D products, commercialized, yeah. And this has generated 150
06:15million in terms of commercial value. And not only that, it has contributed to 240 million in terms of
06:21export. So I believe these are some of the things we can sort of like unpack.
06:26Can I just jump in here very quickly? So when you say that this has been the impact of
06:32Maranti, when we talk about innovation, of course, we often talk about let's not just be the consumer of
06:38innovation, let's be a creator, a creator of technology, a creator of IPs, a master builder,
06:45that's the dream of every country. But Maranti's role in this, and you talked about the impact of
06:52Maranti, Maranti supported projects, how do you, can you give us some examples of how Maranti comes into
07:00this and the impact you have had or seen in terms of productivity gains for the country?
07:07Sure. We've heard that many times before, that we want to be a creator, not just a consumer,
07:15right. But I think for Malaysia truly to become a creator, it is when our innovation, our R&D is
07:22translated into impact. And not just impact, but deliver, when we talk about impact, Maranti always
07:28have this, we call it ideas to impact. And impact is where you deliver market value, yeah. So you may
07:34have great ideas right now, Melissa, but unfortunately, that great ideas of yours will not benefit me
07:39because it stays in your mind. So I think this is where our role is to bring those ideas into impact,
07:45into deliver market value, so that it is adopted, and the benefit is then fully realized. So that's
07:51the critical role of our technology, our agency, which is mandated as a national technology
07:59commercialization agency. So we are very familiar when we talk about startups as well, you know,
08:05not just ideas to impact startups. I mean, when you talk about value of that, yeah. So it's the same
08:10concept. Before the idea reaches impact, there's this value of that. Similarly, before a startup turns
08:16into a unicorn, there's this value of that as well, yeah. So it is the problem is either regulatory
08:22becomes too tough, funding runs dry, yeah, or there is no market for their innovative product. So these
08:30are some of the things that we are facilitating through what we mentioned earlier about the sandbox
08:35program. Yeah, it is not just market, it is not just technology assessment, it is actually bringing
08:42players from the ecosystem, which is the public sector, the private sector, academia, as well as
08:48civil society as well. Yeah, because then only we can actually deliver true value, because one of those
08:54could be one of those, we call it quadruple helix, stakeholder can be the source of the problem statement,
09:01while the other can be the one who's actually benefiting from the solution being created. So this is where we
09:07bring in terms of those ecosystem, and not only that, we match them. And which brings me to another
09:15one of our initiative, which is our match technology commercialization platform. And I know they
09:22probably say that, ah, another platform. But I think this is where the platform imagine when your ideas
09:28is now, and my problem statement is met on that platform. Yeah, so we have universities, we have
09:35corporates, we have government, and we are sharing our problem statement. And the innovators are also
09:41sharing their IPs. And this is where the magic of that match technology commercialization comes into
09:48play. Yeah. Yeah, I want to follow up with a question about the statement sounds ideal. So it seems like
10:01there's a diagnosis of the problem, there seems to be efforts put into addressing some of these,
10:09the effort towards achieving the objective, the vision. Where do you see the bottlenecks? Where do you
10:15see the challenges, the barriers to achieving the vision of increased productivity, productivity growth,
10:23of innovation, and digital transformation?
10:25Okay, um, not an easy answer. And I believe, like I mentioned before, there are regulatory hurdles,
10:36there are funding hurdles, yeah, talent hurdles as well. Yeah, I think there's not one, there's a couple of
10:44areas that we need to focus on. When we say we, I'm using the royal we, i.e. the whole of a whole of government,
10:51whole of Malaysia needs to be looking at it, right? Starting from in terms of having a coherent as well as a
10:59unified policy on innovation, on manufacturing, on human capital development, those needs to be in line, right?
11:09That's one. And again, we do have this fragmented approach still. And this is what, what Maranti is
11:15trying to tackle, trying to bring all the stakeholders into the same table and, and let's battle it out,
11:21right? We understand that everybody has their goals, but I think it is a common goal, it's the whole of
11:27Malaysia goal that we need to, for the, for the benefit of the country, we need to resolve it. Um, I think
11:33sometimes people talk about a mismatch between education output and industry demands. Let not go
11:38there because I think we'll spend maybe two weeks discussing about it. But I think in terms of just
11:44focus on budget 2026, we did mention that there are, the government is giving, um, incentives to, to,
11:51to really bolster those new, uh, technology and innovative areas and skills that we require like
11:57artificial intelligence, uh, cyber security, right? I think in terms of, um, when we discuss with
12:03mostly mostly, mostly we'll, we'll say that, you know, we want to create national sovereignty,
12:08yeah, for technology in critical sector. I think that, that requires a bit of decoding and unpacking,
12:15right? Because there's a lot that we need to do in order to, to achieve that national security,
12:20yeah, national sovereignty as well. Yeah. So this is something that we try to, uh, bridge, we try to
12:26address in through our programs. So whether is it be the sandbox program or our AI sandbox,
12:33you know, our robotics, uh, development academy, uh, we're, we're doing a lot of things over at
12:39Meranti Park, by the way, if you're not been there, do come over 666, it's 668 acres of land
12:46with, um, close to 150 companies, technology companies here. I'm going to stop there.
12:50All right. And I, and we have run out of time. And Safwa, I want to thank you so much for being
12:55on the show with me today. Mohamed Safwa, Mohamed Zairey from Meranti, wrapping up this episode of
13:00Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris, signing off for the evening. Thank you so much for watching. Good night.
13:20Thank you so much for watching.
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