KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 26 — Collaboration between various ministries and other stakeholders is an important prerequisite to creating more opportunities for the creative economy, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah.

Citing an example, he said the recent establishment of the National Creative Task Force which he co-chaired with Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri, aimed to develop a holistic, futuristic and global ecosystem for the national creative industry.

"The task force exists as a central platform or national umbrella body for the creative industry and is part of our national growth agenda,” he said in his keynote address at the forum on Malaysia’s Adoption of the United Nations International Year on Creative Economy for Sustainable Development 2021.

The forum organised by Communications and Multimedia Ministry, United Nations (Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei Darussalam) as well as MyCreative Ventures was streamed live via the ministry’s Facebook page today.

The ministry’s secretary-general Datuk Suriani Ahmad and the UN Resident Coordinator for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, Stefan Priesner, also joined the forum.

Saifuddin said his ministry will also be working closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of International Trade and Industry to foster and promote a competitive creative content industry that meets global standards as well as preparing for the increasing international competition in this area in years ahead.

Sharing Malaysia’s experience in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, he said other than the National Economic Recovery Plan (Penjana) and stimulus packages introduced by the government, MyCreative Ventures Sdn Bhd (MyCreative) had played a major role in providing soft loans, facilitating and helping the creative industry players.

"There are also agencies organising activities, like singers singing from home and shown on TV and get paid with some kind of honorarium.

"We have also started to allow the film-industry people to start shooting with strict SOP (standard operating procedures), and we hope that as soon as the pandemic is over, everything will be more active and people can actually perform and do more,” he said. — Bernama