Enhancing the capabilities of logistics service providers

KOTA KINABALU: The logistics industry has entered an unprecedented phase of transformation to become a vibrant service industry with the envisioning of Malaysia as the Asean Logistics Hub.

According to the Ministry of Transport in a statement, this comes as a total of 60 initiatives under the Logistics and Trade Facilitation Masterplan were initiated and implemented by various ministries, agencies and the private sector for the year 2018 and beyond. 14 initiatives were completed and the rest is under ongoing implementation.

“Moving forward, we must stay focus on the main challenges which can be broadly put into two categories.

“First, continuous investment into infrastructure, such as ports upgrades and expansion, road networks, state-of-the-art IT system – all of which require strong commitment by and collaboration between both the government and private sector.

“Second, human capital. We need to train more skilled workers and professionals, local Malaysians – who is the backbone of our logistic industry,” the ministry said in the statement.

As such the National Logistics Task Force (NLTF) is looking into ways to enhance the capabilities of the Malaysian logistics service providers especially through strengthening human capital development.

The NLTF together with Ministry of Human Resources and Economic Planning Unit (EPU) have conducted the Study of Manpower in Malaysian Logistics Sub Sector 2017.

The study has projected that Malaysian logistics industry requires an increase of 41 per cent workers from 393,000 in 2016 to 554,000 workers by 2022. Jobs will be created in the fast growing e-Commerce especially the DFTZ and the e-fulfilment centres.

For high skill workers, an increase of 40 per cent from 60,800 workers to 85,000 workers in 2022. Similarly, the demand for semi skill workers also increase by 40 per cent from 180,000 to 252,000.

“We need workers with expertise in the field of supply chain network design, integrated warehouse management, information technology application and sophisticated crane operations.

“For the supply side, there is need to foster closer collaboration between training providers, logistics associations and industry players to develop industry relevant training programs.

“For the logistics player, more efforts are needed to enhance the attractiveness of the logistics industry for new entrance to the workforce.”

NLTF will also implement five recommendations and 16 initiatives to enhance the capabilities of the logistics service providers.

Some examples of the initiatives are to develop Malaysia Logistics Centre of Excellence, strengthen Malaysia skills certification body, enhance accreditation and certification program, inventory of logistics courses and logistics occupation awareness program. These initiatives aim at increasing the supply of skill workers and to increase the attractiveness of the logistics industry.

“This effort is to further drive the development of the logistics industry towards becoming a high performance sector in Malaysia.”