KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 11  -- The government will allocate RM10 million to the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development (MED) for advocacy and awareness efforts on halal certification, halal product development and providing platforms for local players to tap into the US$3 trillion global halal market.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the government will increase the Market Development Grant’s ceiling from RM200,000 to RM300,000 per Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) .

The Market Development Grant is an initiative by the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation.

“At the same time, the ceiling for the SMEs’ participation in each export fair will also be revised upwards from RM15,000 to RM25,000.

“The government will also allocate RM50 million to encourage SMEs to engage in more export promotion activities,” he said when tabling the 2020 Budget at Parliament today.

Meanwhile, he said the government will allocate an additional RM50 million to My Co-Investment Fund (MyCIF) under the Securities Commission Malaysia to leverage digital financial innovation platforms to help finance the underserved SMEs.

“The government will support and encourage new digital financial innovations such as the Equity CrowdFunding (ECF) and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platforms.

“Collectively, more than RM430 million was raised as at June 2019, benefiting more than 1,200 SMEs,” he added.

-- BERNAMA