Special fund to promote youth entrepreneurship under 1MET to be unveiled in Budget 2014

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak Friday announced a special fund to promote entrepreneurship among young people under the 1Malaysia Entrepreneurship Programme (1MET), details of which to be further unveiled in the tabling of Budget 2014 on Oct 25.

The announcement made during a question-and-answer-session at the launch of 1MET, drew thunderous applause from the 5,000-strong crowd at the event, hosted on the sidelines of the 4th Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) here.

United State Secretary of State John Kerry joined Najib at the event where they spent about 30 minutes interacting with the participants. The session was emceed by Finance Ministry Secretary-General Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Siregar Abdullah.

1MET, a series of boot camps organised with StartupMalaysia to guide and help young entrepreneurs will also be held annually.

Earlier, Najib said young people with great ideas and big dreams are very infectious.

"They got wonderful ideas. Ideas that can be a game changer and this is just a beginning. We believe in young people but I don't want this to be just a mere rhetorical statement. We must channel the young people in the way that we can help them change their dream into reality," Najib said.

The prime minister also encouraged the youth to dream big and be ambitious.

"We just announced the setting up of MaGIC (Malaysian Global Innovation and Creative Centre) in Cyberjaya. The US will also initiate a new programme that will support and train half a million entrepreneurs in 1,000 cities around the world, including in Malaysia, over the next few years," Najib said.

Meanwhile, Kerry told the crowd not to hesitate but instead come forward to collaborate with the US entrepreneurs.

"Anybody want to work and collaborate, please don't hesitate to call our embassy, our economic people. I just announced today on behalf of President (Barack) Obama that we're creating a new centre which will work with young entrepreneurs throughout the region.

Kerry said the centre would be led by the US Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, who herself is an entrepreneur.

"She will be in charge to working with you to make this happen," Kerry added.