MCMC's GMBO Grant Is A Good Deal But Has Few Takers

I spend a few months a year in Malaysia and have been doing so for a few years now. Not many people know where the country is located. It's actually situated between two very famous neighbors, Singapore to the south and Thailand to the north.

The country is still developing and the government hopes it would reach a fully developed status by 2020. One of the initiatives the government has taken includes encouraging small business entrepreneurs to take their businesses online.

The Malaysian government through the Malaysian Communications And Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has budgeted RM50 million ringgit to help 50 thousand small business get online through what is known as the Get Malaysian Business Online (GMBO) grant. That's RM1000 per business. That sum may appear small but over here, it is sufficient to purchase a domain name and subscribe to an ecommerce software for a year and still have some change left.

To sweeten the offering even further, the MCMC has made it very easy to qualify to apply for the grant. There are basically 6 criteria to be met and that's it.

So why the are there only a few takers for the GMBO grant? Well, as juicy as the grant looks, no one  really knows about it. Publicity for the GMBO grant has been its greatest weakness thus far. The first version of the grant suffered from too strict a criteria, which would put anyone off regardless if it was publicized well.

But the current version, also known as GMBO 2.0, is destined not to hit its set target of 50 thousand approved applications by December 31, 2013.

MCMC estimates that there could be as few as 14 thousand applications approved by the end of the year. Hence, it may be revealed at the reading of next year's budget that the program will continue for another year.

Hopefully, it the program is extended, the opportunity to publicize the GMBO grant further would not be wasted.

Below is a video of an event organized by the MCMC.