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(Reuters) – Malaysia plans to build Southeast Asia’s largest integrated circuit design park and will offer incentives including tax breaks, subsidies, and visa exemption fees to attract global tech companies and investors, the government said on Monday.

The Malaysian government is aiming to turn Kuala Lumpur into a regional digital hub, with the goal of being among the top 20 countries in the global startup ecosystem index by 2030.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the proposed integrated circuit design park was part of the country’s efforts to move beyond backend chip assembly and testing and into high-value front-end design work.

The country is a major player in the semiconductor industry, accounting for about 13% of global testing and packaging.

Making Malaysia the Go-To Place of Tech Firms

The park, to be backed by the central Selangor state, will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as British chipmaker Arm Holdings, Anwar said, without providing further details.

The country’s sovereign wealth Khazanah Nasional will also launch a fund to invest in innovative high-growth Malaysian companies, with an initial allocation of 1 billion ringgit ($ USD209 million), Anwar told the KL20 Summit event, aimed at launching new policies to support Malaysian startups.

Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli said the government will offer incentives including subsidised office spaces, exemptions on employment passes, relocation services, and lower corporate tax rates for foreign venture capital firms, tech entrepreneurs, and unicorns—startups reaching a USD $1 billion valuation—looking to invest in the Southeast Asian nation.

“We want to attract global unicorns to enter Malaysia, so that high-skilled and high-value jobs are created, besides developing a pipeline of future entrepreneurs and senior leaders in tech,” Rafizi said.

A general view of Kuala Lumpur

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