KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 (Bernama) -- The first MSC Status for East Malaysia has been awarded to NXG Shared Services Sdn Bhd based in Sabah. Group Chief Operating Officer, Francis Chung announced during a media briefing that the company is proud of its triple achievement of being the first Sabah-based company to attain the MSC status outside of Peninsula Malaysia, the first Shared Services company and the first wholly-owned foreign company in Sabah to be accorded this status.
 
According to Chung, NXG supports Malaysia’s Economic Transformation Program (ETP) and the East Malaysia Growth Corridors, namely the Sabah Development Corridor initiatives. NXG has invested over RM1 million in its operations to promote Sabah as a business destination of choice and a second -tier Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) city, apart from Kuala Lumpur and Cyberjaya.
 
NXG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong based Nexgen Biopharma Group, a leader in biomolecular and biomedical products, devices and treatments for aesthetic benefits. NXG was initially incorporated in 2015 as a Shared Services Company managing the group’s business processes and has since progressed to offering Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). Considered as a “Hybrid Model” as defined by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDEC); NXG initially focused on the Wellness, Beauty and Health (WBH) Industry which is estimated at USD3.4 trillion in 2013 by SRI International.
 
Chung added that, “our plans moving forward is to grow organically and expand our focus from the WBH Industry to include industries such as manufacturing, tourism - a RM6billion industry and one of the fastest growing for the eco-tourism sector in Sabah; and Education which is one of the 12 National Key Economic Areas identified.”
 
“Sabah offers exponential opportunities. Geographically, it is strategically located with an international airport providing direct connectivity to Philippines, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Australia.
 
For trade and commerce, the government is doing an excellent job by investing in seven ports located in Kota Kinabalu, Sepanggar, Sandakan, Tawau, Kudat, Kunak and Lahad Dato. In addition to this, the new master plan study for the Aviation Hub and Air Freight Logistics, the construction of a jetty in the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) in Sandakan and the Pan Borneo Highway offers connectivity for seamless trade.”
 
With NXG’s presence in Sabah, Chung hopes to assist SMEs to move up the value-chain and achieve international best practices and standards through its business solutions that include Knowledge Process outsourcing and IT outsourcing; with vertical expansion to include respective solutions such as receivable management, HR software, web design, software training, data entry and analytics.
 
“Sensitive to the needs of the industry, MDeC launched the MSC4Startups program last year to extend the MSC-status benefits to qualified companies that are limited by world-class infrastructure in their geographic location. Nevertheless, NXG is a testament that East Malaysia is ready. Sabah is a great location to start your business and is an attractive MSC location. MDeC is committed to ensure that Malaysia remains an attractive location that offers conducive business environment. Malaysia has consistently been ranked 3rd in AT Kearney’s Global Services Location Index as a great location to do business,” said Michael Warren, Vice President of Global Business Services, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).
 
Present at the event were Directors Alvin Pang and Benjamin Taine, who as Sabahans were proud of the opportunities made available to local talent. NXG currently employs 120 employees of which 70% of them have at least a Diploma qualification and are benefitting from transfer of knowledge from a small team of foreign talent.
 
Chung elaborated that NXG did not face any issue with talent migration to Peninsular Malaysia. He explained that, “the University College Sabah Foundation is now establishing collaborative linkages with the University of Salford in the United Kingdom and with over four main universities namely University Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Sabah, Open University Malaysia (OUM) Sabah and Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Sabah (TAR Sabah) producing skilled talents who are multilingual in diverse languages such as Mandarin, English, Malay, other Chinese and local dialects; Sabah now offers a young and emerging demographic of qualified and skilled talent pool from over 650,000 residents in Kota Kinabalu alone”.