Newly-appointed Rural and Regional Development Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has reiterated an earlier proposal that a Malay-only digital mall, currently dubbed “Low Yat 2”, be set up following last month’s race-fuelled violence in and around Low Yat Plaza.
Going further than earlier calls for the same, Ismail Sabri suggested that the third floor of the MARA building in Jalan Raja Laut be converted into the new digital bazaar.
“We will develop the floor as soon as possible and we will give space especially to Malay traders,” he told reporters yesterday, as quoted by The Malay Mail Online.
“We target for 100 per cent of the traders to be from Malays. There has never been any distributor from the Malays, so we have to give them some leeway,” he added.
MARA, or Majlis Amanah Rakyat, falls under Ismail Sabri’s ministerial purview, and is tasked with empowering the Malaysian Malay community economically.
On July 23, UMNO Youth information chief Jamawi Jaafar made a similar call, and urged Putrajaya to create a digital and IT hub specfically for Bumiputeras, with the aim of producing more Malay tech entrepreneurs.
“To be honest, with the presence of various government agencies in charge of Bumiputera interests, such as MARA (Majlis Amanah Rakyat) and UDA (UDA Holdings Berhad), by right many Bumiputera entrepreneurs should have been produced in this field,” he had said.
