PM launches Malaysia Productivity Blueprint
SIX initiatives in the plan underpin the government‘s goal to transform Malaysia into a high-income nation by 2020.
MALAYSIA has hit the ground running to boost its productivity with six key initiatives to be executed under the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP).
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said this after chairing the first National Productivity Council tasked with supervising the country’s Productivity Agenda yesterday.
He said an effective increase in productivity would give the country the foundation to spur sustainable economic growth and realise its aspiration to become a high-income nation by 2020 as well as a top 20 nation by 2050.
The six initiatives were among 16 key activities to be rolled out as national-level incentives, and were outlined in the Malaysia Productivity Blueprint launched by Najib yesterday.
Present were Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan and International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed.
The initiatives were to restructure and improve the management of foreign workers; encourage adoption of 4th industry revolution technologies; and, strengthen digitalisation among small and medium enterprises.
Three other initiatives were to embed productivity targets for enterprises into disbursement processes of new grants, incentives and soft loans; remove nontariff measures impeding business growth and improve efficiency of the logistics sector; and, evolve the governance model to drive game-changing implementation of the blueprint.
Najib said the blueprint was in line with the country’s target to achieve national labour productivity growth of 3.7 per cent per annum by 2020 under the 11MP.
“Our performance so far is still lower than what we have targeted,” he said.
However, he said the target was achievable if the people were committed and willing to work together through correct and strategic support, effective initiative and monitoring mechanisms.
“I will take it upon myself to communicate directly to all ministries, agencies and the private sector to determine what should be done to achieve this high productivity rate.
“This is to show that we are very serious about ramping up our productivity.”
Najib said the council had also agreed to establish three sectors of productivity nexus — retail, food and beverage; electrical and electronic; and, chemical products.
“Each of the sectors will get a RM5 million launch grant to carry out initial activities with the hope that they can sustain themselves in the future,” he said.
This will be followed by Phase 2 in September for the subsectors of machinery and equipment, tourism and agro food, while Phase 3, to begin in December, will focus on information and communications technology, professional services and private healthcare services, he added.
“Apart from the 16 action initiatives, the blueprint also outlines five strategic thrusts comprising 10 national initiatives and 43 sectoral initiatives.
“The execution of the blueprint will be funded by at least 89 existing programmes under the 11MP with an allocation of RM9.5 billion for 2017 to 2020.”