KUALA LUMPUR: The government will set aside an allocation of RM30 million for the National Animation Platform to put more local content on the international stage.
Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz said the fund under the investment loan matching scheme would be operated by MyCreative Ventures.
This was based on the successes of Upin and Ipin, Agent Ali and BoBoiBoy that were not just household names in Malaysia, but famous across Southeast Asia.
He said agencies such as FINAS (National Film Development Corporation Malaysia), Cendana Malaysia (Cultural Economy Development Agency) and MyCreative Ventures were set to intensify various measures to revive the activities within the pandemic hit creative industry.
"Under Budget 2022, a total of RM188 million is provided to continue initiatives such as the Digital Content Fund, Digital Multimedia Content project, Film Incentive and the Perkasa Modal Insan programme.
"Next year, the government will also provide the Riuh Keluarga Malaysia programme an investment loan matching fund amounting to RM20 million. The move is expected to provide 5,000 new job opportunities," he said at the opening of the Pemulihan: Pembaharuan (Recovery: Renewal) at Publika Shopping Gallery here today.
Tengku Zafrul said the creative economy supported 4 to 10 per cent of the productive workforce in developed countries. However, in Malaysia it contributed to lower than 2 per cent of the national Gross Domestic Product.
The minister said a large portion of workforce and participants in the creative economy were casual or gig workers.
"I truly understand some of them are badly affected by this pandemic – given the limited safety net within this segment of economy. Hence, last year under the Penjana initiative, the government allocated RM225 million via MyCreative Ventures Group that includes Cendana — to boost the resilience of the creative economy through a combination of soft loans, grants and living assistance," he said.
For cash grants towards creative and cultural workers alone, the government allocated RM10 million to Cendana which is intended to assist the livelihoods of people within the industry.
"This has been 100 per cent approved. As at today, we have distributed RM5.54 million of the funds to 554 creative industry workers. A sum of RM8 million was further allocated to Cendana under Pemulih and this has been 82 per cent approved," said Tengku Zafrul.
This year, he said the government expanded social protection coverage under Socso by including contributions for the self-employed and informal workers.
"This initiative will continue with a matching contribution of 80 per cent by the government and extended to cover nine new categories of self-employed which most importantly, will also include artists. This initiative is expected to benefit more than 810,000 self-employed workers nationwide," he added.
The Pemulihan: Pembaharuan exhibition, which ends on Dec 5, was organised by Fergana Art in collaboration with Publika Shopping Gallery.
UEM Sunrise Chief Executive Officer Sufian Abdullah said historically Publika has always been aligned to the local arts scene and has supported such especially during the Movement Control Order with incentives including rental rebates and exemptions. However he said based on a number of businesses involving the arts that had shuttered as many were significantly affected by the restrictions.
"The first thing we did after the MCO was open Black Box as a performance space and we provided free live shows every weekend where every night we have two local artists performing on our YouTube and Facebook channel and we have also been accommodating them across the mall as well on a daily basis so that gave them an opportunity to re-engage with the audience. So that's been great in terms of footfall and the atmosphere that things are back alive again."
He said Publika also supported the arts scene by
slashing rental rates by 25 to 50 per cent for such tenants and is keen to pursue this.
"Moving forward we are trying to reorganise our tenancy role and recompose the facility so that a lot them can get a bit more exposure and visibility and easier access to the shops instead of them intemingling with other retail outlets," he said, adding this would happen over the next three or four years.
Sufian said it was important for real estate companies and developers to support the arts as it was an integral part of placemaking and urban design.
"All we need is venue an event or space whether it is formal or informal and what you see here is that there is a formal allocation for performing arts to happen we have also broadcasted this on social media. It is important to keep this momentum going to allow this and we have to play our part."