KUALA PERLIS, May 9 — The government is targeting a 30 per cent increase in local franchising companies registered under the Franchise Act 1998 this year.
Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN) Fuziah Salleh said as of March 31, 693 franchises had been registered in the country, of which 58 per cent were local brands.
“Franchising is a business that we strongly encourage entrepreneurs to do because it has undergone the processes of branding, marketing and so on.
“It already has a system, so it will help entrepreneurs not to start from scratch, learn from the start, make mistakes and sometimes require a long time to build a company,” she told a media conference after officiating the 2023 North Zone Franchise Business and Perlis-level Aduan Suri programmes, earlier today.
Fuziah said the franchise industry had always been the government’s focus in assisting local entrepreneurs in expanding to overseas markets.
So far, over 2,000 local franchise outlets have operated in 75 countries, involving 68 brands.
Meanwhile, she said the KPDN Aduan Suri System, which was launched in January, had received 4,273 user complaints as of April 30, with over 90 per cent of the complaints being resolved.
Among the highest complaints were those related to online transactions (30.54 per cent), prices (27.78 per cent) and misleading services (16.97 per cent).
“Each complaint only needs 14 days to be resolved and, since being introduced in January, the number of complaints received has reached over 4,000 compared to last year, which involved over 20,000 complaints.
“This shows (there is) consumer awareness, especially among women. This Aduan Suri has only been launched a few months ago, (so) I am sure the total number of complaints will further increase,” Fuziah said.
— Bernama
