LUXOFT MALAYSIA OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY
SPEECH BY CHIEF MINISTER OF PENANG
LUXOFT MALAYSIA OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY
21 FEB 2017
Ladies and Gentlemen
Congratulations to Luxoft Malaysia on your launch and may your new set up here bring many years of profitability for the benefit of your shareholders and for Penang & Malaysia.
Luxoft in Penang
Today marks an important day for Luxoft Malaysia and Penang with the set-up of this new Centre of Excellence (CoE). Luxoft Malaysia will be housed in this beautiful building, Wawasan Open University, with an investment value of RM235 million in human capital & technology for the first 5 years.
The opening of this CoE today will continue to add value to Penang in terms of talent creation and high income jobs. For instance, Luxoft Malaysia will be aiming to create more than 500 IT / software development engineers in Penang through their promising automotive software university.
The Luxoft Automotive Software University (LASU)’s 3-month program aims to (1) use Luxoft’s best practices for efficient automotive knowledge transfer to locals, (2) build training frameworks adjusted to local specifics and (3) develop a source of top-notch engineers experienced in Automotive domain.
IT / Global Business Services (GBS) Ecosystem in Penang
We are grateful for Luxoft’s confidence towards Penang and its IT / GBS scene with world-class Forbes 500 companies. Penang’s IT / GBS sector has 50 SSO / GBS companies providing more than 8,000 high income jobs to locals, serving both regional and global markets.
Last year, Kerry Logistics and Canadian based electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, Celestica launched their Global Business Services (GBS) and IT hub in Penang providing high income job opportunities to locals.
The key selection criteria of Luxoft in choosing Penang converged with the same critical success factors that make Penang a preferred GBS location in recent years. They are: (1) international benchmarks and accolades; (2) our talent pool; (3) our efficient supply chain; (4) good infrastructure and (5) clean and good governance. If Penang can fulfil the requirements of Luxoft, we can satisfy the needs of any others GBS or Shared Services Outsourcing companies.
Livability & Work-Life Balance to Residents
CNN recently ranked Penang as the 2nd top tourist destination for 2017 whereas ECA International ranked Penang as the ‘Top 16th most liveable cities in Asia’ in 2016.
These accolades prove that Penang is the most liveable city in Malaysia and offers the best of both worlds, a competitive ground for business and an island famed for its tourist attractions.
Penang towards Generating Higher Pool of Knowledge Workers
Apart from building infrastructure and connectivity as well as implementing good governance, developing the state’s talented young people to move up the value chain has always been a priority to the Penang State Government. In Penang, there are over 40 public and private universities and colleges, in addition to the eight reputable international schools.
We are helping to build the capability of the state as it moves towards a knowledge economy by maximizing local content, promoting economic diversification and entrepreneurship. Through mentorship programmes we hope our innovators can become entrepreneurs thereby creating a technopreneur ecosystem through our Penang Science Cafe (PSC), Penang Tech Dome (PTD) and Penang Learning Center that offers STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) teaching.
We have also established Penang @CAT in yet another historic building in Wisma Yeap Chor Ee to nurture tech start-ups through accelerators so that we can leverage on our core competencies in our electronic cluster to partake in the 4th Industrial Revolution of Big Data Analytics, cloud computing and Internet of Things (IOT).
Moving Forward
In a move to house expanding GBS companies in Penang, the State is looking at a two-phase project of Mayang Mall in Bayan Baru. This includes the refurbishment of Mayang Mall 1 costing RM12 million and new development building of Innoplex 2 which will be ready with MSC status. We are also talking to a few private developers to built more MSC status office buildings in Penang.
Once again congratulations to Luxoft and thank you for making Penang and Malaysia your CoE for automotive and agile.
LIM GUAN ENG