Riot: Sectors lagging in productivity

‘F&B and retail falling behind despite contributing RM89bil to nation’s GDP’

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian food and beverage (F&B) along with its retail sectors are falling behind in terms of productivity despite contributing a sizeable 8.3% (RM89bil) to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem noted the retail industry in terms of productivity per worker recorded RM45,180 in the third quarter of 2017, while the F&B sector was RM24,971.

While he acknowledged these were good, he said the numbers were significantly lower when com pared to other sectors, such as ICT (RM299,490) or transport and storage (RM63,398).

“When it comes to the retail and F&B sector, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) dominate the subsectors in terms of both number and value of contributions.

“However, SME productivity is twice lower than those of large companies.

“As a whole, the retail and F&B industry is lagging behind in terms of productivity levels, placing them behind the best in class average,” he said in a speech read out by minis try secretarygeneral Datuk Dr Mohd Gazali Abas at the Productivity Nexus for the Retail and F&B industry launch yesterday.

The Retail and F&B Productivity Nexus was drawn up to spur a growth of at least 7.2% in labour productivity in the industry with three flagship programmes – retail digitalisation, organisation to organisation growth venture, and top transformers.

The programmes will be led by Malaysian eCommerce chairman Ganesh Kumar Bangah, Fave founder Joel Neoh, and PKT Logistics Group chief executive and managing director Datuk Michael Tio respectively.

Riot said the programmes will provide support to high potential businesses for the digitalisation of business operations and building ecommerce capabilities.

Retail and F&B Productivity Nexus champion Datuk Bruce Lim said at a press conference that the programmes will last for two to three months and will commence in March.

“Each programme includes seminars, presentations, site visits to companies with best practices and other sessions tailored to help participants improve productivity levels.

“We are limiting each programme to 25 participants at this point, but we are exploring the possibility of hosting more in the future,” he added.

The privately driven nexus is run primarily by the Bumiputra Retailers Organisation, Malaysia Franchise Association, Malaysia Retail Chain Association, Malaysia Retailers Association, and KPintar, with support from government agencies.