Samenta seals strategic partnerships with Russia at KazanForum 2025
KUCHING (May 17): The Small and Medium Enterprises Association of Malaysia (Samenta) sealed four memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with its Russian counterparts during the 'Russia–Islamic World: KazanForum 2025'.
The first MoU was inked with the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) to collaborate on small and medium enterprise (SME) innovation policies, talent mobility, and joint technology accelerators, said Samenta in a statement today.
'The second MoU was signed with the Association of Clusters, Technology Parks and Special Economic Zones of Russia, aimed to establish a bilateral innovation corridor connecting SMEs and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in both countries.
'The third MoU was sealed between Samenta member, Veecotech Solutions Sdn Bhd and VisionLabs, to co-develop and commercialise AI-driven computer vision applications in Southeast Asia.
'The last MoU was inked between Veecotech, ICL (Russia) and Kazan IT Park, aimed to incubate cross-border startups and conduct joint research in cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure and enterprise platforms,' it added.
According to Samenta national president Datuk William Ng, these agreements represent actionable frameworks to bring Russian and Malaysian SMEs together not just for trade, but for co-creation and innovation.
'Among the memoranda signed were with Russia's Agency for Strategic Initiatives, an innovation agency personally chaired by President Vladimir Putin.
'This shows the importance of Malaysia to Russia, and the honour the country places on Malaysia and our Prime Minister,' he said.
Ng pointed out that the successful engagements in Kazan are aligned with Samenta's #samenta2036 vision of building omnipresence for Malaysian SMEs and ensuring they are integral players in the global value chain.
He expressed deepest appreciation to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for including SMEs in Malaysia's international economic diplomacy and for ensuring that the country's entrepreneurs are given global visibility and opportunities.
Additionally, he hailed Anwar's successful mission to Russia as a major milestone for Malaysia-Russia economic ties, with tangible outcomes for the SME sector.
'The Prime Minister's participation in the KazanForum 2025 marked a renewed commitment to multilateral engagement, with SMEs taking centre stage,' he added.
Ng led a delegation of 10 Malaysian SMEs participating in the KazanForum 2025 and a series of business and innovation dialogues focused on SME internationalisation, digitalisation, and industrial cooperation.
He was a featured speaker at two high-level forums, namely the 'Russian-Malaysian Economic and Industrial Cooperation: Opportunities for Growth through Technology and Innovation' and 'International Association of BRICS SEZ: A Platform for Multilateral Economic Cooperation between Russia and the OIC'.
'Our message was clear: 'Malaysian SMEs are agile, tech-savvy, and ready to engage with global partners'. This forum gave us the ideal platform to initiate direct collaboration with Russian agencies and innovation clusters,' he said.
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