Member Article

Fusionex powers Alibaba and Malaysian Government Initiative - Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ)

Fusionex is leading a consortium to provide the e-services platform, powered by Big Data technologies, for the world’s first Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) – a ground-breaking initiative jointly launched between the Malaysian Government and e-commerce marketplace titan, Alibaba.

With DFTZ being the brainchild of the Malaysian government, key drivers and stakeholders include the Ministry of Finance (MOF), Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), the Ministry of Transport (MOT), Royal Malaysia Customs Department, Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad, POS Malaysia, the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE), SME Corp, etc.

The DFTZ e-Services Platform is a trade facilitation platform that is integrated with other business service platforms and government service platforms, to facilitate a paperless, end-to-end and accurate data capture, data storage, data exchange and data analytics process, in respect of the high growth in internet trade activities.

The DFTZ will facilitate small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and merchants to capitalise on the internet community as well as the e-marketplace via a huge borderless addressable market. At the same time, these cost benefits and efficiencies inadvertently trickle down to consumers who would stand to enjoy faster, efficient and more cost-effective products and fulfilment.

At the DFTZ launch, Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Najib Tun Razak declared, “We want to be the leader in the region for global trade. We want this to be the regional hub. We want SMEs to really grow by leaps and bounds and that can happen because of DFTZ. Digital Malaysia is the fastest growing sector in our economy. It is a sector that will enjoy double digit growth, and the sky is the limit! This (the DFTZ) is the part that will provide the growth, the potential, the impetus, the catalyst for us to change, redefine regional and global trade, redefine the role of SMEs, and redefine the partnership of Malaysia and China.”

The aim of the DFTZ is to capitalise on the convergence and exponential growth of the internet economy and cross-border e-commerce activities, by facilitating cross-border trade and enabling businesses to import and export goods with a priority for e-commerce.

To achieve this goal, the DFTZ will help businesses including SMEs expedite the transportation of goods regionally. For Phase 1, the DFTZ will set aside a section of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Aeropolis for storage space and logistics facilities. This will then expand to other sites in subsequent phases.

During his keynote speech at the DFTZ launch, Alibaba Group Chairman and Founder Jack Ma commented, “I am impressed with Malaysia’s vision and speed. DFTZ and eWTP would help small businesses and individual eCommerce players benefit from global trade. Today we are witnessing that in Asia, small businesses can use digital ways to enable themselves to sell things, to buy things, to bridge moneys all across the world. Alibaba commits that we will make this thing - the first DFTZ, the first eWTP - very successful! This is not only an opportunity for Malaysia small businesses. This hub is a hope and opportunity for Asia’s young people and small businesses. It is the opportunity for Asia.”

Giving businesses access to the international market will result in a growing trend of orders and trades fuelled by businesses not being confined to specific locations and time zones. The Prime Minister also highlighted that the DFTZ will create 60,000 new jobs and boost exports by SMEs to US$38 billion (MYR160 billion) by 2025.

The DFTZ is also expected to generate a huge amount of online transactions of orders, trade movements, payments, and more, coming in and going out of the country and region, hence the need for the platform to be powered by Big Data technologies.

Dato’ Seri Ivan Teh, Fusionex Group CEO, says: “The DFTZ is a first of its kind digital hub that brings together a multitude of key parties including trade facilitation players, e-marketplace players, government agencies, logistics providers, freight forwarders, and of course, SMEs. The state-of-the-art e-Services platform is powered by, amongst others, Big Data technologies and Machine Learning that will facilitate trade and allow transactions to take place faster, more cost effectively, more reliably and more efficiently.

This visionary initiative by the Malaysian government and Alibaba will pave the way to a seamless digital trade platform that will help remove unnecessary barriers, reduce costs and minimise or avoid unnecessary delays and encumbrances. We are delighted that Fusionex’s platform will power this initiative. At Fusionex, we believe this marks the beginning of a revolutionary way to perform trade regionally and globally, at speed and at scale.“

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Emma Walkom .