CREATIVE INDUSTRY TOLD TO UTILISE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGY

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 (Bernama) -- Creative industry players should utilise
the new media technolgy in order to be competitive in the industry, Multimedia
Development Corporation's (MDeC) creative multimedia division vice-president
Kamil Othman said.

He said that in five years, new media technology would contribute more than
half of the growth in the creative industry.

He said that the Internet and Internet video games using new media
technology would be among the sectors that would see rapid growth.

"By next year, the animation sector would be worth RM280 billion
(US$1=RM3.66), video games (RM119 billion) and special visual effects (RM360
billion)," he said when presenting a working paper on content development for
the creative industry here Monday.

At the moment, however, not many local talents had taken the challenge to
utilise the new media despite the rapid development in technology, he said.

He hoped that there would be more talents venturing into the animation,
Internet games and special visual effects as these sectors had the potential to
generate economic growth.

At the moment, he said, the country's participation in the industry at the
international level was negligible.

"Our creative products such as film, drama or animation still fail to
penetrate into the international market," he said.

Meanwhile, University of Malaya Media Studies Department Deputy Dean Prof
Dr Hasmah Zainuddin said creative industry participants were facing
difficulties to obtain funds to start a project.

She said the current economic slowdown would make it even more difficult
to obtain fundings.

"Banks are not interested to finance films, for instance, as the industry
is deemed to be risky," she said in her working paper on the local audiovisual
sector, tabled at the creative industry conference which was attended by about
500 industry players here.

-- BERNAMA