KUALA LUMPUR:MyCreative Ventures Sdn Bhd is seeking funds in the upcoming Budget 2021 for the upskilling, training, upgrading as well as expansion of competencies and skill sets for creative industry practitioners who are adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Chairman Mohd Naguib Razak said the agency hopes to give allowances to industry players who are participating in the upskilling programmes, especially given the severity of the COVID-19 disruptions.

“It is a difficult time for businesses to really get going and to upskill. I hope we can lift the morale of those who are without jobs or their usual freelancing stints; and inspire them to (undertake) new opportunities and collaborations,” he said in an interview with Bernama.

Incorporated in 2012, MyCreative is a government investment arm set up to spur Malaysia’s creative industry via strategic and innovative funding in the form of debt or equity investments.

According to the Department of Statistics, the creative industry employs 859,900 individuals in 2019.

Mohd Naguib also called for the government’s initiative for the creative industry under the Economic Recovery Plan (PENJANA) to be extended.

In June, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced that the government had allocated RM225 million to spur the growth of the creative industry through programmes and soft loans under PENJANA.

These measures are to be implemented through the cooperation between MyCreative Ventures, the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation and the private sector.

According to a poll carried out by MyCreative in October, grants and loans, support for marketing and promotions as well as job creation are the top three priorities on the Malaysian creative industry’s wish list for Budget 2021, to be announced by the Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz this afternoon.

-- BERNAMA