Malaysia's recent launch of its Multimedia SuperCorridor (MSC) provides a clear example.

Conceived in late 1994 (in view of countries with more competitive labour costs such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar and China) and encompassing the new $5 billion international airport at Sepang (ready in 1998), Kuala Lumpur city centre and the new $11.2 billion administrative capital at Putrajaya (which includes the so-called Cyberjaya city housing a hundred thousand residents and a further 150000 workers), the Corridor hopes to attract teleservices, gateway services, remote data services and programming, inter alia, by the turn of the millenium.

By now, the Malaysian Prime Minister's department has moved to Putrajaya, and plans are underway for schools in the Corridor to be connected to the Internet.

On the surface, the Corridor would seem to mirror the two Singaporean technology corridors. However, once one realizes that the Malaysian Corridor will measure fifteen kilometres by sixty kilometres, Singapore's diminutive size and economic vulnerabilities become sharply apparent. The entire Corridor is larger than Singapore.

The Corridor will be marketed and managed by a one-stop agency - the Multimedia Development Corporation. Among its many aims, the Corridor hopes to become, by 2000, a regional centre for telemedicine, and a collaborative cluster of universities (such as the National University of Malaysia and the Agricultural University of Malaysia) and corporate R&D centres, taking full advantage of distance learning.

Similarly, as a remote manufacturing co-ordination and engineering support hub, it will enable companies in high-cost countries to access plants across Asia as a virtual extension of their domestic operations.

The entire area will be serviced by a $2.8 billion fibre-optic network that will link the Corridor directly with ASEAN, Japan, the United States and Europe. At ten gigabits per second, this network will carry information a trillion times faster than conventional copper lines.

In order to attract investment from chip designers, electronic publishers, Internet Service Providers, software engineers, content localizers, telemarketers, entertainment firms (such as television and movie production houses) and other multimedia companies, five- to ten-year tax breaks for companies coming in before August 1997, relaxed visa requirements and guarantees for intellectual property rights have been announced.

There will also be a free flow of information and no restrictions on foreign ownership and employment. Every application to do business there is processed and returned within a month.

Singapore will be able to enjoy synergy and spin-offs from the Corridor's development, and some local firms are already sizing up business opportunities.