By Nasuha Badrul Huzaini
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 — The Selangor Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Digitalisation Matching Grant has received an overwhelming response from both urban and rural communities, including Kuala Selangor, Hulu Langat and Ijok.
Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari said out of the total 1,500 applications submitted, a total of 1,048 SMEs have qualified for the grant.
“Initially, due to pessimistic sentiments, applications were quite lacklustre. However, things started to turn around after the Selangor Information Technology and Digital Economy Corporation (Sidec) was tasked as the secretariat to implement this initiative.
“Sidec has been working closely with the state assemblymen’s offices, entrepreneurial associations, and business chambers to conduct 15 webinars to provide explanations about the grant to more than 1,000 SMEs.
“As the Covid-19 infection subsided and businesses started to recover, applications for this grant accelerated, and the funds were fully utilised earlier than expected,” said Amirudin in his speech during the official launch of the Selangor Smart City and Digital Economy Convention 2021 (SDEC 2021), here today.
He said a total of RM5 million had been channelled to cover five areas of digitalisation, namely cloud accounting, e-payment system, human resource management and payroll, digital marketing and e-commerce system.
The grant, launched in April 2021 during the movement control order, played a crucial role in encouraging SMEs to take the first step in digitalising their businesses.
Amirudin added that many have illustrated how they leveraged the matching grant to improve payment operations and transaction management based on some success stories from the programme.
“For example, a food company, Abam Satay, now has all the payment transactions recorded automatically.
“This has helped them plan operations and manage finances better and systematically, thus enabling them to venture into a new line of business, namely frozen food,” said Amirudin.
