Malaysia and Indonesia Probe the Joint Fund for Technology Startup

As neighboring countries, Malaysia and Indonesia may be “hostile” in many sectors, but this time, both countries are agree to probe the joint fund to invest on technology startups in regional area. The MoU [pdf] is signed by The Malaysian Executive Technology Development Corporation (MTDC), Norhalim Yunus and the head of Indonesian Investment Agency (IIA) Soritaon Siregar in Kuala Lumpur and witnesses by Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak. It has not informed yet how much is the investment value will be invested for the joint fund investment.

Cited from Bernama, the agreement released by MTDC and IIA, it is infered that the regional funding is the dedicated funding received by Malaysia and Indonesia to support the entrepreneurship and new business strategic innovation in technology ecosystem.

This funding is aimed for business persons with feasible technology-based business and can be up-scaled, with high growth and long lasting performance. The logic reason of this funding is that both countries are having 300 million people population if they are combined; it represents the significant market in Asia after China and India.

The Center of Government Investment (Pusat Investasi Pemerintah - PIP), as cited from Kompas.com, is the government investment under the Ministry of Finance and was built based in the Peraturan Pemerintah (government regulations) Number 1 Year 2088. Recently, PIP has managed funding about IDR 5,427 trillion which is all from the government. PIP can invest in any sectors, both real or stock holding, but it should not loss. Soritaon Siregar started to served as the head of PIP since 2010. He was previously the Director of Investment System - Indonesian Ministry of Finance.