No more ‘govt knows best’ approach, Samenta tells Anwar’s Cabinet

 

The SME association said Anwar Ibrahim’s Cabinet must institute reforms to ‘structural bottlenecks’ that have been holding back Malaysia’s economy. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A group of small and medium-sized enterprises has urged Anwar Ibrahim’s Cabinet to chart a new path for economic growth, including instituting reforms to “structural bottlenecks” holding back Malaysia’s economy.

Small and Medium Enterprises Association (Samenta) chairman William Ng said the new Cabinet must revamp the current “government-knows-best” approach.

It should allow the industry and businesses to share the burden of governance and regulatory compliance, he added.

Ng said “business as usual” can no longer be the order of the day as some neighbouring economies have transformed and steered ahead at a much quicker pace than Malaysia.

“This includes empowering trade associations to carry out intervention, capability building and promotional activities,” he said in a statement.

Ng called for further liberalisation of the financial sector and speeding up of the transition from a government-led regime to a market-driven regime in order to free up resources more rapidly in support of businesses.

He also asked the new Cabinet to consider reforming Malaysia’s labour laws to enable wages to be tied to productivity, promote talent mobility and skills as a currency, and to accommodate the gig and globally connected economy.

Ng said the role of government-linked companies (GLCs) would need to be rebalanced to allow a stronger focus on supporting socioeconomic development and protecting the national interests in strategic sectors.

Concurrently, the government must encourage greater competition and dismantle monopolies and quasi-monopolies.

Ng also said the government should identify priority growth sectors where Malaysia has an advantage and provide assistance to SMEs to develop their capability and capacity to support such sectors.

Those in secondary sectors, including the retail and distributive trade, general manufacturing, and professional and business services industries, should also be given assistance to achieve a higher profit margin and resilience through digitalisation and automation. - FMT