Malaysia will establish 50 local economic centres outside the Klang Valley area, which is the hive of economic activity in the country, to ensure that economic growth can be more widely distributed.
This is part of an economic expansion plan proposed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, its very first after 12 months.
While the idea seems fantastic, the ministry currently helmed by Azmin Ali (who is embroiled in a gay sex scandal) did not elaborate on the nature of the project.
It however forms part of a series of ‘ideas’ that will be rolled out to push forward Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s ideas for a redistribution of wealth in Malaysia.
Dr Mahathir calls it ‘shared prosperity’ and has earmarked seven strategic thrusts needed to make this possible.
They are, among others, restructuring and improving the business ecosystem; generating new growth sectors; enhancing talent reformation and national resources; and improving labour market and employee income.
Azmin’s ministry says it is proposing what it says are key changes that will make shared prosperity a reality:
a) Assist the transformation of business and industry ecosystems including SMEs to be able to adapt to the Industrial Revolution 4.0, Digital Economy and Intellectual Economics to become a high value industry and able to generate more income to the people;
b) Provide a transformation to the country’s human resources to produce an effective and high-value workforce as well as ensure national skills development and TVET centers meet industry requirements;
c) Reducing dependency on foreign workers by ensuring the industry shifts to high value jobs and services promising higher earnings to employees;
d) Identify 15 new key areas of success that can drive the economy to a higher level
e) Conduct rationalization on people’s needs and based strategies by emphasizing graduating programmes for vulnerable economies and B40s to exit relative poverty; as well as
f) Establish 50 local economic centers outside the Klang Valley to ensure that economic growth can be more widely distributed.
The ministry did not elaborate on the means needed to achieve the six aims it put forward, whether it has conducted studies to come to this conclusion and what are the underlying challenges the country will face in order to achieve the goal of shared prosperity. -/TISG