Malaysian government welcomes proposal for more structured support for growth-stage SMEs

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Support for growth-stage SMEs

Highlights

Fadillah welcomed the business community’s call for more structured support for growth-stage SMEs to sustain growth after early success.
He stressed that SMEs’ success in securing major contracts or entering international markets requires increased capacity in staffing and management, investment in assets, and additional financing.
Fadillah called for AI to be used to solve operational problems and improve services, while maintaining ethical judgment and ensuring the benefits of technology are shared inclusively.

This article was translated from the original. Read the original version by our correspondent here.

Policy support for growing SMEs

The Edge Malaysia reported that Fadillah welcomed the business community’s call for more structured support for growing SMEs when he spoke at the opening of the World Marketing Summit Malaysia 2026 in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

He said equal attention should be given to efforts to help businesses sustain growth after achieving early success. He noted that winning a major contract or gaining the opportunity to enter international markets may require a company to hire more employees, strengthen its management capabilities, invest in equipment and secure additional financing.

Fadillah said opportunities that could take a business to the next level could also test its ability to sustain that growth. He added that entrepreneurs’ experiences in building businesses and overcoming challenges should be heard when policies are formulated, so that the most effective forms of support can be identified.

The role of AI in small business operations

Meanwhile, Fadillah said the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, should be guided by its ability to solve problems and provide better services to the public. He said meaningful innovation for small businesses did not necessarily require the most advanced technology; it could instead involve reducing the time spent on repetitive administrative tasks so employees could focus more on customers.

He said AI could help businesses analyze information and make recommendations, but the technology did not remove the responsibility to exercise sound judgment, maintain integrity and assess the impact of decisions on people’s lives. He noted that small businesses, workers and communities should also have meaningful opportunities to participate in and benefit from technological progress.

In our earlier coverage of AI adoption by SMEs in Malaysia, we highlighted that the focus is shifting from adoption rates alone to whether AI is genuinely transforming business operations and competitiveness. We also reported that AI adoption is becoming more widespread, but most SMEs still use it at a basic level for productivity tasks such as marketing content and automating customer responses, rather than for comprehensive transformation.

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