Latest news with #RM144.4
Barnama
6 days ago
- Business
- Barnama
Data Centre Investment Surges To RM144.4 Bln By March 2025 -- MITI
BUSINESS KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 (Bernama) -- From 2021 to March 31, 2025, Malaysia recorded 25 approved investment projects in the data centre sector, with a total investment value of RM144.4 billion. According to records from the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), MITI said these projects were approved under the Digital Ecosystem Acceleration Scheme (DESAC) and are expected to create high-skilled, high-income jobs. 'These investments are projected to generate 1,429 new jobs, with roles requiring specialised expertise such as engineers, data scientists, big data analysts, cybersecurity engineers, and information technology (IT) engineers. 'Over 50 per cent of these roles will be high-income jobs, offering salaries of more than RM5,000,' MITI said in a written reply published on Parliament's website today. The ministry was responding to a question from Aminolhuda Hassan (PH–Sri Gading), who asked MITI to detail job opportunities arising from the expanding data centre sector and the potential economic and labour market impacts. On that front, the ministry said it will carry out a survey to assess the economic spillover effects of the data centre industry. 'MITI has identified several key parameters for data collection across four main segments in the data centre ecosystem. 'These include data centre companies and operators; major tech firms and content providers; telecommunications and mobile network operators; and equipment suppliers and service providers within the data centre industry,' it said. In addition, MITI noted that several leading global tech companies have committed to creating around 67,000 direct and indirect jobs, mainly in the IT sector and related supply chains, once their projects are fully implemented.
The Star
13-07-2025
- Politics
- The Star
There is no alternative to multilateralism
THE year 2025 should be a time of celebration, marking eight decades of the United Nations' existence. But it risks going down in history as the year when the international order built since 1945 collapsed. The cracks had long been visible. Since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the intervention in Libya, and the war in Ukraine, some permanent members of the Security Council have trivialised the illegal use of force. The failure to act vis-à-vis the genocide in Gaza represents a denial of the most basic values of humanity. The inability to overcome differences is fueling a new escalation of violence in the Middle East, the latest chapter of which includes the attack on Iran. The law of the strongest also threatens the multilateral trading system. Sweeping tariffs disrupt value chains and push the global economy into a spiral of high prices and stagnation. The World Trade Organisation has been hollowed out, and no one remembers the Doha Development Round. The 2008 financial collapse exposed the failure of neoliberal globalisation, but the world remained locked into the austerity playbook. The choice to bail out the ultra-wealthy and major corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens and small businesses has deepened inequality. In the past ten years, the US$33.9 trillion (RM144.4 trillion) accumulated by the world's richest 1% is equivalent to 22 times the resources needed to eradicate global poverty. The stranglehold on the state's capacity for action has led to public distrust in institutions. Discontent has become fertile ground for extremist narratives that threaten democracy and promote hate as a political project. Many countries have cut cooperation programs instead of redoubling efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The available resources are insufficient, the costs are high, access is bureaucratic, and the conditions imposed often fail to respect local realities. This is not about charity, but about addressing disparities rooted in centuries of exploitation, interference, and violence against the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. In a world with a combined GDP of over US$100 trillion, it is unacceptable that more than 700 million people still suffer from hunger and live without electricity or water. The richest countries bear the greatest historical responsibility for carbon emissions, yet it is the poorest who will suffer the most from climate change. The year 2024 was the hottest in history, showing that reality is moving faster than the Paris Agreement. The binding obligations of the Kyoto Protocol were replaced by voluntary commitments, and the financing pledges made at COP15 in Copenhagen – promising US$100bil annually – never materialised. The recent increase in North Atlantic security organisation Nato's military spending makes that possibility even more remote. Attacks on international institutions ignore the concrete benefits the multilateral system has brought to people's lives. If smallpox has been eradicated, the ozone layer preserved, and labour rights still protected in much of the world, it is thanks to the efforts of these institutions. In times of growing polarisation, terms like 'deglobalisation' have become commonplace. But it is impossible to 'de-planetise' our shared existence. No wall is high enough to preserve islands of peace and prosperity surrounded by violence and misery. Today's world is vastly different from that of 1945. New forces have emerged, and new challenges have arisen. If international organisations seem ineffective, it is because their structure no longer reflects the current reality. Unilateral and exclusionary actions are worsened by the absence of collective leadership. The solution to the multilateralism crisis is not to abandon it, but to rebuild it on fairer and more inclusive foundations. This is the understanding that Brazil – whose vocation has always been to foster collaboration among nations – demonstrated during its G20 presidency last year and continues to demonstrate through its presidencies of the global South grouping Brics and United Nation's environmental conference COP30 this year: that it is possible to find common ground even in adverse scenarios. There is an urgent need to recommit to diplomacy and rebuild the foundations of true multilateralism – one capable of answering the outcry of a humanity fearful for its future. Only then can we stop passively watching the rise of inequality, the senselessness of war, and the destruction of our own planet. — China Daily/ANN Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the president of Brazil.
