Greetings from MASSA !

We have passed 1H2020.  Covid-9 pandemic disrupted the economies of many countries, including Malaysia.  It has been an eventful 2020 thus far.  Bank Negara’s latest report confirmed Malaysia has gone past its worst, registering a contraction of 17.1% in 2Q2020 (1Q2020: 0.7%).  While we grapple to rebuild our respective businesses we must continue to remain vigilant and adhere to the SOPs to prevent COVID-19 from viralling up again. 

The Movement Control Order (MCO) in 2Q2020 “locked down” many businesses but we have witnessed the agility of some sectors of our economy that have quickly innovated  to stay in business and remain competitive.  Computers, automation, data processing and the development of business apps have led the change towards a seamless, safe and cashless way to transact and do business.  Hence, the inertia to “go-digital” has become a compelling push factor.  In view of this, MASSA hopes to bring to members attention, events and programmes that can be informative and useful to help you and your business in your journey to go “digital”. 

In this newsletter, we report on 2 webinars organised by MASSA together with partners in the industry.  They were (1) How Drones are changing the Business World and (2) The best time to leverage on Cloud Technology: Take your business to greater heights.   Do take time to listen to the webinars posted in this edition of our newsletter.

We thank MARDI for contributing their informative articles on “MARDI Young Agropreneur Programme” and “MARDI Essential Oil Distillation Systems: A Large-Scale Extraction Technology For Producing Flavour and Fragrance Materials” and look forward to working with your organisation on upcoming programmes.

MATRADE organized a webinar on “Market Update on Colombia”.  We have captured some salient points and issues for member’s consideration as they seek to expand the market reach for their products and services.

MASSA will endeavour to line-up more events this year so that members can stay connected and be updated on developments for the digital future.

We wish all members and readers, to stay safe and keep well in these Covid-19 days.

Thank you.

Ng Su Fun
Editorial MASSA