Starting your own business always do sound daunting. It is not easy to overlook everything, let alone build it from the ground up. As an entrepreneur or a businessman, starting your own business is not only about yourself and your idea, any external help are always appreciated as it eases whatever challenge there is to come. Malaysia as a country is rated as the 24th in 2018 World Bank’s Ease of doing business, which is other words, it is the 24th easiest country to start your own business worldwide.

Granted, as easy as everyone can make it sound, start your business in Malaysia is still not something to look down on, a proper path is still to be taken to guarantee success, or at least for a business to take its footing. There are more than business ideas to take into consideration before actually creating your very own company.

Why you should start your business in Malaysia?

1. Resources and Availability

Malaysia is a country in development that is way ahead in digitalization than most wanted to believe. Complete with infrastructures that support business centers and hubs such as great public transport, wide multilingual networking as well as the availability of high-speed internet everywhere. These resources covers from the most basic communication tools to something that helps massively in dealing with a foreign market.

First off, the availability of business hubs is something that is trending recently worldwide. While most traditional big corporations have their own business space, smaller and medium enterprises are looking at virtual workspace or using a coworking space. The availability of infrastructures make these practices a reality and with a little study, we can see the bloom of this business in Malaysia as well, especially in the city center in Kuala Lumpur.

Thinkhub as a coworking space is some of the best examples in welcoming foreign entrepreneurs into the country. Equipped with the abovementioned high-speed internet and up-to-date infrastructures, it is playing an important role in the digitization of the country. In the same time playing its most important role as one of the most advanced, easy-to-access workspaces in Shah Alam, a city in Kuala Lumpur. With spaces like these, it should be relieving to most entrepreneurs as it is some of the best ways they could save up on their costs and worry less in the earlier timeline of their business while focusing on tackling the Asian market.

Want to book a room tour of ThinkHub Coworking Space in Shah Alam? Contact us.

Besides, Malaysia is also a multinational country and hence, there is a diversity in races, norms, cultures and most importantly language. Having access to multilingual staff or the availability of multilingual staff for hire is a valuable asset that pretty much isn’t available in any part of the world without any sort of investment. In Malaysia, most races are to learn multiple languages and are more or less decently fluent in most of them including languages like Chinese, Tamil and of course English. With these, the language barrier is not even there to begin with for someone who mainly speaks English, and sometimes, they can be really helpful when you are dealing with overseas clients, such as those from China.

That is not all, Banks in Malaysia are well equipped with modern and flexible banking systems. They are all set up with properly functioning online banking system and mobile support. These could help massively if you were to manage multiple bank account overseas. As long as you have internet, you have access to your bank anywhere in the world. With how the systems are set up, having a multiple foreign currency account is also possible, you’ll need nothing but a correct visa.

2. Financial Support

Finance or cash is always the biggest concern when starting a new business, it is the beginning and the end goal of every business. With that said, every help is welcome in this department regardless of business type and this is exactly why you should consider start your business in Malaysia.

Corporate taxes are what throws people off the most when they are considering setting up a business overseas. It is a long term commitment one must made and best if they could do some researches beforehand. If they did, they would’ve realize that Malaysia has some of the lowest International Company tax rate in certain state, and that is always ideal for an oversea company. This is besides the amount of support the Malaysian government are throwing out for all the small, medium enterprises (SMEs).

Below are some of the business grants for small, medium enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups:

• Incentivising Women Entrepreneurs
• Indian Community Entrepreneur Development Scheme (SPUMI)
• MARA Business Payment Rescheduling
• PEMERKASA’s Additional Employment Incentives
• Penjana Kerjaya 2.0
• PERMAI Special Prihatin Grant (GKP)
• SME Digitization Grant
• Targeted Loan Repayment Assistance (TRA)
• Wage Subsidy Programme (WSP 3.0)
• Working Capital Guarantee Scheme (SJMK)

With different ministry and governmental departments overlooking different sectors of business, there are a lot of different grants and support over each category. These also include incentives if certain criteria were achieved or working in a business, below are some of the examples of incentive a company can apply for:

• Tax exemptions for MSC Malaysia status companies.
• Tax exemptions for businesses undertaking green technology projects or services.
• Industrial building allowance and total tax exemption for ten years for biotechnology organizations.
• EPF (Employee Provident Fund) initiatives.
• Manufacturing companies’ incentives such as automation capital allowance.
• Overall tax exemption and tax rate reduction for e-commerce businesses.
• Wage subsidies and reduced corporate tax rate for SMEs.
• Enhanced loan repayment assistance and credit management for SMEs.
• Pioneer status and investment tax allowance.
• Special incentive schemes for import-export businesses.
• Incentives to boost consumption of local products.
• Assistance for Women entrepreneurs.
• Improved financial aid for digitizing businesses.

3. Investor’s Favorite

Malaysia had been the playground of investors for the past decade or more. This is mainly due to the flourish of Malaysian’s domestic market over time. Besides, the robust framework towards investors helps in protecting the investors. In fact, Malaysia is ranked 3rd in protecting minority investors worldwide in 2017.

It suffices to say that being under the eyes of big investors are good enough as a benefit to starting your business locally, it is not all. There are also some other reasons people love to invest in Malaysia, and these factors are as much of an advantage to them as they are to you.

Firstly, Malaysia is located in the heart of South-East Asia and is some of the best gateways to gain access to over 600 million people in the Asian market. This is further enhanced by the fact that Malaysia is but a direct flight away from some of the biggest trading center in the world such as Tokyo in Japan, Beijing in China, Seoul in Korea as well as Hong Kong. These places are within reachable distance in but a few hours’ flights.

Turning it the other way around, with Malaysia’s affordable price tags, having the business affiliates meeting up in Malaysia is not too bad of an idea. For the convenience it offers, if an entrepreneur were to employ the service of a coworking space, say Thinkhub, Coworking Space in Shah Alam, also in the center of Kuala Lumpur, you are granted access to whatever you need in a meeting. Coworking spaces like these are bound to be equipped with various helpful utilities such as conference room, meeting room, webinar room or even multifunctional event spaces for a larger group of the physical meet-up.

This is where everything just works together, while you are granted the convenience in reaching into the market, the utility and transportation are also at your disposal without worries. This is definitely something every business should find very useful.

Political stability is something people would not necessarily agree but here’s why it is still an advantage. Despite the situation of politics in Malaysia for the past year or so, the country itself is still standing proud with its independent state for more than 60 years at this point. Never in any point where the Malaysian government says no to any legit investor or show any sign of not welcoming towards entrepreneurs. This benefits entrepreneurs as much as it does for foreign investors.

Conclusion

There are so much more to include as some of the most welcoming aspects for business to be established in Malaysia such as the friendliness and welcoming citizens, how Malaysia is a country that is suitable for most people to live in, the existence of a diverse culture that is accepting towards foreign companies. These are some of the notable mentions for people who are still doubting the legitimacy of the abovementioned benefits of starting your business in Malaysia.

All and all, a business always aims to establish, make money and expand in the future. For a country to have systems, resources and financial support so welcoming in all three main aspects of running a business, it is definitely some of the wiser choices for countries to start your business in.