By Adrian Lim
KUCHING, July 16: Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) is looking into enhancing productivity in Sarawak, in particular Kuching, by reducing the processes for the application of certain permits from the local councils.
MPC director general Datuk Abdul Latif Abu Seman said one of the areas that the corporation was looking at is to improve productivity and competitiveness of the country, including Sarawak.
He stated that some permits for operation such as construction permits, for instance, required many processes.
Thus, he believed the procedures and processes should be simplified and reduced to further improve productivity and competitiveness.
“We want to improve the construction permit especially in Kuching going forward.
“In Kuala Lumpur, dealing with construction permits is currently ranked the second and we want to speed up the workflow and approval processes.
“In 2007, constructing a warehouse in Kuala Lumpur used to take 22 procedures and about 260 days,” he said before the signing of an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between MPC and Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) at a hotel here today.
He added that Sarawak ranked third among other states in terms of productivity in the country.
Within Asean, he said that Malaysia remained the second most competitive economy after Singapore.
Following feedback, Abdul Latif said MPC was looking to review business regulation in Malaysia to enhance work processes and increase productivity.
He disclosed that regulation constituted about 5 to 10 per cent of the cost of doing business for the private sectors.
Hence, he said MPC was looking to review business regulations and look into how it can assist local businesses to grow.
Abdul Latif said the findings from its review of the business regulation will be presented to the federal government.
Abdul Latif added that the findings will be the input for the federal government to draft strategic policies which are business friendly and facilitate the growth of the private sector.
He stressed that consultations were required before the federal government implemented any policy for businesses.
Thus, he said MPC had created a Unified Public Consultation (UPC) at its web portal to enable the public to send their comments and feedback.
Abdul Latif believed the federal government needed the feedback of the public and industry players into consideration before implementing any policy as not to hamper the growth of the businesses.
He said MPC believed in establishing a good public-private partnership.
On another note, Abdul Latif said MPC has adopted several online platforms to assist businesses to mitigate the impacts of the Movement Control Order (MCO).
He revealed that since the MCO, MPC has organised 187 digital platform sessions involving 29,574 participants.
Abdul Latif said MPC will continue to support industries productivity and business growth especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Among those present at the signing of the MoU were SEDC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Husain, SEDC general manager Abdul Hadi Datuk Abdul Kadir, MPC board member Datuk Abang Karim Tun Openg and MPC state director Sarimah Misman.—DayakDaily
