KUALA LUMPUR: The Communications and Multimedia Ministry (KKMM) has called on digital economy industry players to help the government prepare a more accurate policy framework and related policies.

Its Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa said KKMM welcomes views and recommendations from industry players who better understood the environment and the real challenges in the sector.

"Views and recommendations should come from industry players and I would say that they understand the real challenges in the industry better than us in the ministry.

"We cannot assume that people at the top always know everything, the bottom-up concept is important ...we need to listen to them more to make the right policy design," he said.

He said this last night in the "Bersama Annuar" programme on Twitter Spaces hosted by Bernama to discuss 'Digitalisation of the Economy: What's in it for the people'.

He said it was a challenge to the government to formulate and regulate policies in ensuring that the digital economy ecosystem would not 'kill' local entrepreneurs due to the openness of the market conditions in the sector.

Annuar said in an increasingly borderless digital economy market, the government should look into the situation and establish start-up related programmes that could provide more incentives to encourage young entrepreneurs.

He said Malaysia would remain a consumer nation if entrepreneurs could not capture a wider market.

"If we could not control the wide-open market because our products could not take-off, we could not be a country of production. We would end up as buyers or merely as consumers. The processes are becoming modern but the real economic growth is still not happening," he said.

-- BERNAMA