Malaysia Govt Mulls Use of Drones at Country's Borders

Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the government is studying the possibility of using drones along the Sabah’s waters and border areas to address security issues.

He said the situation in the waters of Sabah, for example, with frequent occurrences of abductions and cross-border crimes, required a more efficient and well-prepared precautionary measure.

“In the waters of Sabah (for example), the border with the neighbouring countries (the Philippines and Indonesia) is too long, stretching over 1,000km.

“We can use drones in the border areas, this is what we are thinking about,” he said in a ‘get together’ event with Malaysians residing in Indonesia at the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta tonight.

Muhyiddin is on a two-day working visit to Indonesia starting today, in an effort to further strengthen strategic cooperation with the republic on issues of mutual interest between the two countries.

Almost 500 Malaysians were present at the event.

Malaysia is accelerating is strategy to become a centre for drone research and development.

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, quoting Surina Shukri, CEO of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), “Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s government has pitched the idea to corporations from the U.S. and Europe.”

The MDEC is a government agency charged with promoting innovation and the digital economy and has recently hosted a meeting with local businesses and AirMap  to discuss “the basic foundation of building a UAS traffic management (UTM) platform for our Malaysian drone ecosystem in line with our Government aspiration to establish a global testbed for AI, data analytics and augmented reality and to tap into the dronetech sector which is estimated to generate a value of USD127 Billion by 2025,” said a social media posting from Koh Chen Tien of  Artificial Intelligence Human Integration (AIHI) .

“The local scene for drone related industries has seen an extensive growth throughout the years, hence MDEC together with Futurise Sdn Bhd wants to encourage industry players to participate in research and development activities by building Malaysia’s first Deregulated Drone Testing Zone in Cyberjaya,” says the MDEC.