“We need to do more and move faster in pushing through further reforms to improve our business regulatory environment.”
DATUK SERI MUSTAPA MOHAMED, International Trade and Industry Minister
ALTHOUGH Malaysia slipped one notch in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2018, the country has been lauded as one of the top economies to record successes in business regulatory reforms.
Malaysia is ranked 24th among 190 economies.
Some of the successes singled out include strengthened access to credit through the Companies Act 2016.
It also improved in terms of protecting minority investors through greater corporate transparency.
Malaysia is the fourth-best country for protection of minority investors.
Improved infrastructure facilities at Port Klang were also noted as they have eased the handling processes and facilitated imports and exports.
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said 23 reforms had been undertaken since these rankings started 15 years ago.
“These reforms sent a strong signal of Malaysia’s commitment to reduce regulatory burden to
ensure our laws will encourage especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs),” he said in a statement.
Under the “Starting a Business”
indicator, the Companies Act 1965 was overhauled last year. Several requirements which had made the incorporation process complicated in the past, especially for SMEs, had been removed.
“The Act has been modernised now, on par with global standards. However, these reforms have not been acknowledged yet in the report as the measures were only implemented during the first half of this year and thus have not produced tangible results.”
Likewise, there was progress under the “Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts” indicators.
Mustapa said the slight drop in the rankings indicated that other countries had been successful in implementing deeper reforms at a faster pace.
“We need to do more and move faster in pushing through further reforms to improve our business regulatory environment,” he said.