386 technology products and services successfully commercialised - MOSTI

He said this had surpassed the government’s target set under Budget 2016, where it aimed to commercialise 360 products and technologies from government-funded research and development (RD) by 2020.

"An innovation-centered economy will shape an active, highly resilient and competitive society, subsequently boosting the country's reputation to a respectable level globally.

“Malaysians not only need to be proficient in using technology, but also be capable of being creators and developers of technology," he said.

Khairy said this when launching the Malaysian Commercialisation Year (MCY) Summit 2020, which took place from Dec 17-18 virtually on the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation’s (MOSTI) official Facebook page today.

Citing the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2020, he said out of 37 upper-middle income countries, Malaysia ranked as the second most innovative country after China; the eighth out of 17 countries in Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania; and ranked 33rd in the overall GII 2020 rankings compared to 35th in 2019.

In terms of quality, Malaysia's innovation output is comparable to those of high-income economies, however, the country still showed a low efficiency level as the output is lower in comparison to the investment or input, he said.

As such, Khairy said the government is emphasising on the return on investment (ROI) on spending on RD, as well as creating more demand-driven RD to be adopted by the industry in order to propel Malaysia to the top 20 position in the GII by 2030.

At the same time, the minister said gross expenditure on RD may be increased from 1.04 per cent to 3.5 per cent and business expenditure on RD may be raised from 43.9 per cent to 70 per cent by 2030, while experimental development research may be increased to 50 per cent from 24.5 per cent by 2025.

Khairy said the MCY initiative helped to increase the visibility of local RD products, technologies and services in the global market while simultaneously strengthening Malaysia's position in the competitive market.

Taking the main winner of the Commercialisation Achievement Award last year as an example, he said the Plug and Play Grow Kit offered a modern agricultural solution to support the large-scale agricultural industry and produced high quality crops.

Meanwhile, the Efinity EZ Water Filter product -- the main winner of the Social Entrepreneur Award Category last year -- had benefited rural communities such as the Orang Asli, flood victims and refugee camps by producing water pumps that provide filtered water for daily use without the need for electricity.

For the 2020 MCY Special Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), a total of 122 products, technologies and services from 56 agencies have been evaluated in two series of MCY Due Diligence Workshops.

As a result, 43 products, technologies and services have been listed as MCY 2020 Special KPIs, he said.

This year’s MCY will be the fifth edition of the event since it was first held in 2016.

Moving forward, the emphasis for the event be on shifting RD commercialisation initiatives to the global level.

The two-day MCY summit featured five major events, including the presentation of the MCY 2020 Award, with prizes worth RM1 million for five categories and one overall prize; product launch as well as the launch of the Social Innovation Roadmap.