KUALA LUMPUR, 22 March 2019 – The Ministry of Entrepreneur Development (MED) today called for greater public-private partnership participation to realise the objectives outlined within the National Entrepreneurship Framework (NEF).

Its Secretary-General Datuk Wan Suraya Wan Mohd. Radzi said that such partnerships are an important element in nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit among Malaysian businesses as set out within the strategic objectives of the National Entrepreneurship Framework (NEF).

Datuk Wan Suraya Wan Mohd. Radzi noted that the NEF, which was launched in November 2018, charts the future direction of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country, and sets the broad parameters for the eventual National Policy on Entrepreneurship, which is expected to be announced in the second half of this year.

“One of the NEF’s targets is for small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to contribute 41 percent to Malaysia’s GDP by 2020,” she said, adding that current contribution stands at approximately 37 percent currently.

“In addition, we also want to create one million jobs within five years, which will entail 50,000 entrepreneurs creating 200,000 job opportunities annually.  We also aim to train 50,000 graduates yearly in the entrepreneurial sector, ensure RM50 billion turnover by co-operatives by 2020, and increase SME contribution to exports from the present 17 per cent to 23 per cent by 2020.”


Datuk Wan Suraya made these comments after her meeting with Ganesh Kumar Bangah, the Founder and Executive Chairman of Commerce.Asia.  She also congratulated Commerce.Asia on their recent acquisition of PanPages Lab Sdn. Bhd. (‘Panpages Lab’) which owns the largest database of SMEs within Southeast Asia.
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The latter’s database contains insights into seven million SMEs spanning six countries – namely, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia – which is being maintained by a team of data professionals, with information being constantly sought after by  global search engines and map providers.

The acquisition of Panpages Lab allows Commerce.Asia to expand the reach of its enablers to the entire region by mining Panpages Lab’s extensive database and using this data to provide lead generation to Commerce.Asia’s current and future SME facing Enablers.

Ganesh Kumar Bangah, Commerce.Asia’s Founder and Executive Chairman explained, “this strategic acquisition gives us valuable insights into five key ASEAN countries, enabling us to have better understanding of the diverse ethnicity, customer-cum-business patterns and preferences, which we can use for today’s evolving online marketing and sales opportunities. This business purchase comes at an opportune time when eCommerce is growing multi-fold, with a whole paradigm shift towards online purchasing. The acquisition combined with our current portfolio of enablers will be a catalyst to increase the eCommerce penetration among SMEs across South East Asia.”

He concluded by pledging to continue supporting MED and the objectives outlined within the NEF.