MITI proposes budget allocation for SME assessment programme

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has proposed for an allocation in the 2019 Budget to have a readiness assessment programme to help spur the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country.

Deputy Minister Ong Kian Ming said the data collection programme, involving 5,000 companies, would evaluate how far they had gotten along the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (4IR) transformation and what they needed to do going forward.

“Once the budget has been approved, we hope to be able to roll it (the programme) out so that the base line of this study (can be utilised) for us to find ways to improve them,” he said at the Steinbeis Malaysia Foundation’s SMX Solutions Programme Dialogue here, yesterday.

Ong said at present, only less than 10 per cent of Malaysian SMEs are at the 4IR stage.

He said many SMEs were still lagging behind and comfortably staying within the Industry 2.0 and 3.0 levels, mainly due to the wait-and-see attitude and lack of awareness on the changes that are taking place in the global market.

“I’m afraid if they are not aware of some of the global trends that are happening, they will be overtaken by those who have upgraded, and before they know it (the changes), they (had) lost their customers and competitive advantages,” he pointed out.

Ong believed the newly launched National Policy on Industry 4.0 earlier today would help encourage the SMEs to step up their game in matching their businesses with the current trends.

The government has targeted to increase the SMEs contribution to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) to 41 per cent by 2020. — Bernama