This growth will be coupled by significant changes in how Malaysia does business.
At the centre of many of the planned initiatives will be liberalisation measures to promote competition.
These will be especially important in attracting multi-national corporations to Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley, in developing a regional financial footprint and in stimulating growth in Islamic financial services.
The economy will be driven by innovation and a shift to higher value-add activities, such as higher margin downstream food products for the palm oil sector. While we continue to innovate, there will also be a much greater focus on quality and on improving standards. For example, the quality of skills training will be improved through industry-led bodies that will set standards, issue guidelines on content and harmonise the skills-training curriculum across sectors. Moving towards high-income will also require a marked increase in labour productivity. Initiatives such as introducing new harvesting techniques in oil palm plantations can potentially increase labour productivity by a factor of four.
2012/02/29