DFTZ a game changer; will make Malaysia more accessible to the world: SMEs

SEPANG: The Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) Goes Live was an eagerly awaited event for Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs), who wanted to take full advantage of the state-of-the-art e-commerce hub to expand their market shares globally.

The advisor to the Secretariat for the Advancement of Malaysian Entrepreneurs (SAME) Peter Phang, who witnessed the historic moment at the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) this evening said the DFTZ will be a game-changer for the local SMEs.

"Our country is now officially the digital free trade hub for this part of the world and from now on we are effectively being transformed and recognised in the digital world," he said.

The presence of 20 top global freight forwarders in DFTZ will also make Malaysia more accessible to the world.

"Today is also the day that marks the flag off of 1,900 Malaysian SMEs to ride on the digital bandwagon for global trade," he added.

Sharing his e-commerce trading experience, the managing director of Love A Durian, Benson Wong, who exports Love a Durian White Coffee in the region, strongly believes in the power of e-commerce, especially for Malaysian products to penetrate the Chinese market.

"There are a lot of food safety regulations in the world. The DFTZ allows SMEs like us to do new cross-border e-commerce and open up the market, especially in China.

"It also saves a lot of time, because our stocks can be parked in the DFTZ warehouse. Imagine the speed of sending our products from Shah Alam to Penang. Or to China."

But for green household and industrial cleaning product exporter, Kleenso Resources Sdn Bhd, there is a need for DFTZ to support more homegrown manufacturers.

"The DFTZ, at this moment, will benefit the e-commerce online traders," its founder Lee Teck Meng opined. "It can still benefit Malaysian manufacturers like me. But we will have to put in a lot of effort to manage and promote our products that will be in direct competition with products made in China.

"So a lot of local manufacturers will choose exhibition over an e-commerce platform because of its direct and bigger impact."

Sharing the same sentiment, the president of Young Entrepreneurs Association (GMB Malaysia) Agil Faisal Ahmad Fadzil said the mechanics of DFTZ need to be outlined and fine-tuned to support more local e-Commerce players as well as homegrown products.

"The DFTZ should facilitate local SMEs in embracing e-Commerce because our take-up rate is still low. We need to scale up our SMEs, who are more apt at doing business to consumers (B to C) as compare to business to business (B to B) as propagated by Alibaba," he explained.

There are also concerns over different market requirements, especially in China that many local SMEs are still unfamiliar with.