PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today launched the Malaysia Productivity Blueprint, aimed at raising the country's productivity to new heights.
Najib, who is also the National Productivity Council (NPC) chairman, said NPC has agreed to roll out six key initiatives immediately out of the 16 key activities identified under the blueprint, which was initiated under the 11th Malaysia Plan.
The council, which will supervise the country's Productivity Agenda, decided on the matter during its first meeting today, he said.
The six initiatives are; to restructure and improve the management of foreign workers; to actively encourage adoption of 4th industry revolution technologies by companies across main economic sectors; and to strengthen digitalisation among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through e-commerce and adoption of innovative technology.
The other three are; to embed productivity targets for enterprises into disbursement processes of new grants, incentives and soft loans; to remove non-tariff measures that impede business growth and improve efficiency of the logistics sector, and to evolve governance model to drive game changing implementation of the blueprint.
At the same time, Najib said the council has also agreed to establish three productivity nexus which include retail and food and beverage (F&B), electric and electronic, and chemical products.
"Each of this nexus will be provided a launching grant of RM5 million to carry out initial activities and ensure they will be able to fund their own projects in the future," he said.
Today's meeting also decided on the need to recognise multinational and local companies which have achieved high growth rate, high productivity, as well as with a high number local employees, Najib said.
He said the 11MP has set the target to achieve national labour productivity growth of 3.7 per cent per annum.
Najib said the target is achievable, if the people are committed and willing to work together through correct and strategical support, effective initiative and monitoring mechanisms.
He said the blueprint will serve as a holistic measure to target initiatives to open up potential productivity at national, sectoral and industrial level.
"The blueprint also outlines five strategic thrusts, 10 national initiaves and 43 sectoral initiatives.
"The execution of the blueprint will be funded via at least 89 existing programmes under the 11MP with an allocation with RM9.5 billion for the period of 2017 to 2020.
Najib said the NPC will review and formulate policies, as well as strengthen cooperation among ministries and agencies to ensure policy cohesion at all government levels to drive the productivity agenda.
Also present were Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan and Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Mustapha Mohamed.