Policy Paper No.50
Create or Nurture? Lessons from Cyberjaya:
Malaysia’s Promised Silicon Valley
Author: Ali Salman
The main motivation is to study the role of government in the design and success of an industrial policy by analyzing industrial clusters. The overarching question is whether the government should create a cluster from scratch or nurture an existing one? The setting is an industrial and innovation cluster called Cyberjaya in Malaysia, which is one of the 25 most competitive economies in the world as ranked by the World Economic Forum and is ranked amongst the top 25 countries in terms of ease of doing business by the World Bank.
Historically, Malaysia is considered a successful example of an active and deliberate industrial policy, which has helped in making this country one of the top manufacturing hubs for electric and electronic goods, including semi-conductors.