During the on-going tabling of Belanjawan 2020, the Minister of Finance, Lim Guan Eng has announced that the esports sector will receive an allocation of RM 20 million. In general, that amount is double of what the government has allocated for the sector under the previous Belanjawan 2019.
According to the minister, the government has acknowledged the high level of potential that esports has and wishes all the best to all the players that will represent Malaysia to the upcoming SEA Games 2019.
However, in-depth details regarding the allocations have not yet been revealed at the time being.
UPDATE (7:07PM):
Minister of Youth and Sports, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman has provided more details regarding the RM 20 million allocations for esports under Belanjawan 2020, through his official social media channels.
In the brief video, the minister has pointed out that the esports sector will actually have access to RM 40 million of funding in total:
As for the origin of the additional RM 20 million funding, it is apparently assigned to MDEC.
Hence, we believe that it is actually the allocation that is meant to grow the digital content scene which also includes animation and digital arts; not purely for game development and esports as some might have assumed from the minister’s statement.
