Invest Johor, the state's investment promotion agency, signed a strategic partnership with NEOJAPAN Inc. to establish a Southeast Asia Centre of Excellence (SEA CoE) — an initiative to upskill more than 1,000 local tech talent in cloud infrastructure, multilingual IT support, and no-code development, and generate 300 high-skilled digital jobs. The memorandum of understanding was inked by Invest Johor chief executive officer Natazha Harris and NEOJAPAN Inc. president Akinori Saito at the Nikkei Forum Medini Johor 2025, witnessed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi, Japanese Economy Minister Yoji Muto, and Japanese Ambassador to Malaysia Noriyuki Shikata. The SEA CoE will be established in the Johor–Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ), contributing NEOJAPAN's cloud-based platforms including desknet's NEO, AppSuite, and NEOPORT.
"This collaboration aligns perfectly with our goal of turning Johor into a regional hub for digital excellence. By fostering innovation, talent development and strategic investments, we believe the JS-SEZ can become a catalyst for Johor's digital economy."
Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi, Johor Menteri Besar
The partnership laid the groundwork for the SEA CoE, which NEOREKA ASIA officially launched at NEO BUSINESS CONNECT 2026 in Kuala Lumpur the following year — building on the collaboration between NEOJAPAN Inc., NEOREKA ASIA, and Invest Johor to strengthen Malaysia's position in the region's digital economy.