How to Make Malaysia Competitive?

It catches my thoughts when I read the Edge paper published on December 25, 2006 on “How to make Malaysia competitive” articles. I abstracted some of the quotes from the articles.

“Is Malaysia competitive today? Damaging policies remain entrenched. We can only regain our competitive edge if we are willing to abandon failed political ideas. Political leaders must be bold and courageous… must prepare to reject failed ideas and to accept the realities of the modern world. Maybe then Malaysia will regain its competitive edge.”

Abandon failed political idea- by Datuk Zaid Ibrahim (MP for Kota Baru)

“It is sad that the enormous success of NEP has had in eradicating poverty and removing identification of race and economic status as well as maintaining racial harmony is taken for granted. We are obsessed when we know, not least from watching the fallout following the financial crisis, that large equity ownership is often synonymous with unsustainable debt. We seem to ignore other more important measures of economic progress such as employment and net wealth measured on all assets classes.”

Review NEP, Judicial process – by Datuk Nazir Razak (CEO, CIMB Group)


“As it stands today, Malaysia is not moving fast enough to cope with the forces of globalization... the consequences of Malaysia’s sluggish response to a globalizing world are beginning to show. It has slipped down the ladder in terms of competitive edge in almost every aspect of economy. It is no longer a preferren destination of foreign direct investment (FDIs). According to the latest FDI rankings by Unctad, Malaysia is now in 62th place. In 1995, it was ranked sixth!”

Step up the change, Fine tune affirmative policies – by Anna Taing (The Edge)


Here read what our leaders advocate and their ideas to make Malaysia regain Malaysia competitive in global market again:

According to Tan Sri William Cheng (President, Associated Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Malaysia):

1.Discard outdated policies, rules & regulation that discourage foreign and local investors

2.Improve the delivery system in Government department + services; means changing mindset of our official and civil servants.

3.Set up an effective “one-stop approval centre” to approve investment applications from foreign and local investors.

4.Prepare a skilled and well-educated work force to meet the market and industry requirement.

5.Revamp our education system and teaching method from primary to tertiary level, stress creativity and innovation.

6.Unite all the races in our country. We (Malaysian) can be more resilient and competitive in the global market with collective effort as united nation.

7.Place greater emphasis on R&D and application of new ICT (with tax incentive) and move up into capital and technology-intensive manufacturing to become truly developed country.

8.Adopt more open policies in trade and business. Provide incentives and aid our SME enterprises.

While, Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam (President, Transparency International Malaysia), and his commented that the ways for making Malaysia competitive are:

1.The basic premise should be fair to all Malaysians, especially to the poor of all races and religions…. The NEP has enriched, maybe, 1,000 rich families, and often enough through some abuses in the system.

2.The education system must be revamped to go more for quality… we have to introduce more meritocracies at a faster pace or decide to withdraw from global competition. Perhaps reintroduce a kind of fair quota system for each race for entry into public universities and colleges.

3.The quota system reintroduced into public service. This will improve the efficiency of the public service through greater cross-pollination instead of the present inefficient inbreeding process.

4.Religious freedom and religious understanding should be enhanced considerably as a matter of top priority.

5.The equity ownership target under the NEP should be played down and instead human resource development, stepped up to improve the affirmative balance in our society.

6.Competition and meritocracy should be phased into our Malaysian way of life sooner rather than later and the subsidy syndrome should be steadily reduced.

7.Strong leadership and change mindset at all level of government and the private sector and a genuine change to face globalization.

I hope our policy makers and rulers will ponder all these vital areas! By changing their mindset and attitudes, practically implementing long term strategies to rejuvenate Malaysia’s sliding competitive edges. Not with plenty of rhetoric about what needs to be done to invigorate the domestic economy.