KUALA LUMPUR: Government initiatives and the creation of the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) have helped propel home-grown small and enterprises (SMEs) into e-commerce marketplace, says SME Corporation (SME Corp).

It said government efforts including the establishment of the National eCommerce Council (NeCC),  jointly led by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) since December 2015, also contributed to accelerating the growth and development of e-commerce in the country.

The government, through SME Corp and other agencies, have been actively organising awareness and informative programmes to educate, encourage and assist SMEs to move towards current market needs and trends.

“An example is through SME Corp’s Pocket Talks which are conducted on a regular basis to ensure that employees, or even owners of SMEs, are provided with knowledge-sharing platforms on things related to Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the (digital) business as a whole,” SME Corp said in an e-mail interview with Bernama.

On the DFTZ, it said the free trade zone provided market access to SMEs and the opportunity to reach global customers via e-commerce.

“It also simplifies and accelerates cargo clearance process with the introduction of the DFTZ eServices platform which provides end-to-end support to businesses for cross-border trade, networking and knowledge sharing to drive innovation within the Internet ecosystem,” said the SME development agency.

It pledged to continuing working with relevant agencies and partners, especially e-commerce platform operators, to promote the benefits and advantages of getting into e-commerce business.

“A growing number of regional e-commerce start-ups, such as EasyParcel and Photobook, have also successfully scaled their platforms from Malaysia into the regional markets.

“SMEs with ready products and services will be further assisted to get on board the e-commerce platform, especially those that focus on the China market,” it added.

Launched in November last year, DFTZ is a collaboration between the Malaysian government, through MITI, SME Corp Malaysia, Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation and MDEC, and Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, to establish an e-commerce window to the world for SMEs from China and Malaysia.

On the need to put in place strong security policies, especially cyber security risks in the growth of e-commerce, SME Corp said companies must deploy threat-centric security solutions.

It said this would help them gain visibility of assets, protocols, users, applications and traffic patterns on their networks to develop a picture of what would be “normal” for that environment.

“They need to classify assets and systems based on their value in maintaining operations and build defences for critical assets and systems first,” SME Corp said, adding that cybersecurity solutions must be regularly tested, reviewed and updated to prevent cybersecurity attack.

“Being ‘secure’ is temporary as threats and attack techniques constantly evolve. Therefore, defences should be regularly tested and modified as needed,” SME Corp concluded. - Bernama