BUKIT JALIL – The Youth and Sports Ministry is in talks to offer tax incentives to private entities that are willing to rent out their sporting facilities to national sports associations (NSAs) in need of training venues.
Its minister, Hannah Yeoh, said today that this is currently being discussed.
“We can discuss that (tax incentives), and the ministry is currently in an engagement session with the Finance Ministry on next year’s budget.
“There are a few causes that we want to champion with the Finance Ministry, and we will announce them once discussions are completed,” she said at a press conference held today at the National Sports Institute.
She spoke at the launch of the 1Sukan 1Fasiliti initiative, which aims to pair NSAs without training facilities with sporting facilities under the ministry’s jurisdiction or owned by private entities.
Following a town hall session earlier this year, the ministry created an inventory of sports facilities that it manages and attempted to match the relevant NSA with the appropriate venues.
Following that, the NSAs met with the facility owners to discuss the details.
“We announced today that eight sports now have training venues with affordable rent, which will help them be more consistent with their booking.”
“I would like to thank local universities like Universiti Putra Malaysia and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for providing their sporting venues for sport development. This will be good for the university students and the NSAs,” said Hannah.
She adds that the ministry is still attempting to assist ping-pong and wrestling associations in finding a suitable venue for training.
“If there are parties out there with sporting facilities that they want to rent out to NSAs, they can meet with the respective associations or approach the ministry.”
“We are also looking for venues that can host international tournaments; that is the next step we are working on.
“I don’t just want to focus on winning medals… I also want to build basic infrastructure like this to help the sporting ecosystem,” said Hannah.
The seven NSAs that have been matched with new training venues are:
– Malaysia Obstacle Race Sports Association, Obstacle Race, Rakan Muda Complex, Bukit Kiara
– Korfball Association of Malaysia, Korf Ball, The National Sports Complex (Panasonic), Shah Alam
– Teqball Association of Malaysia, Teqball, Multipurpose Hall UPM Sports Academy, Serdang
– Finswimming Association of Malaysia, Sport diving and finswinning, Sports Academy UPM, Serdang
– Softball Association of Malaysia, Softball and baseball 5, UKM Softball Field, Bangi
– Malaysia Sports Aviation Federation, Drone Soccer, Mranti Park, Bukit Jalil (TPM)
– Ice Hockey Federation of Malaysia IOI, Ice Hockey, Icescape Ice Rink, IOI City Mall, Putrajaya – August 28, 2023