Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : THE PUTRA WORLD TRADE CENTRE,
KUALA LUMPUR
Tarikh/Date : 30/11/95
Tajuk/Title : THE OFFICIAL LAUNCHING OF THE BOOK
"MALAYSIAN INCORPORATED"- THE
JAPANESE VERSION
It is indeed a pleasure for me to be here today among
the prominent members of the Japanese business community in
Malaysia to officiate the launching of the book "Malaysia
Incorporated" which has been translated into Japanese.
2. The idea of Malaysia Incorporated was based on the
"Japan Incorporated" which is a close collaboration between
the Japanese private sector and the Government bureaucracy.
The international media regarded such collaboration as
unethical and unhealthy. We do not see why such
collaboration aimed at developing a country and its people
should be bad. Despite the veiled condemnation, we decided
to officially adopt this approach towards economic
development and to actually describe ourselves as Malaysia
Incorporated.
3. The Malaysia Incorporated Policy reflects the
pro-private sector stance of the Malaysian Government in
managing the economy. The policy, like other policies of
the Malaysian Government, has proven to be beneficial to all
individuals and corporate citizens in the country.
4. Basically, the Malaysian Incorporated Policy is
premised on the belief and conviction that the economic
growth and overall development of the country can be
facilitated by the close cooperation between the private and
public sectors. The Malaysia Incorporated concept
symbolises the commitment of both the public and private
sectors to work together towards mobilising all their
resources for the growth of all sectors of the economy. To
achieve this, the Government initiates yearly dialogues with
the relevant leaders of the private sector including foreign
elements, to obtain feedbacks regarding impediments,
bottlenecks or constraints the private sector may be faced
with in running their businesses. Through these sessions
the Government is able to identify and fine tune its
policies, particularly the macro economic policies with a
view to making the environment more conducive for business
development and success. Of course civil servants are
expected to be helpful always when dealing with the private
sector.
5. This public sector/private sector co-operation is
important because it creates an atmosphere of trust and
accessibility between the two sectors and builds confidence
without which investment decisions cannot be easily made.
The Malaysian Government acknowledges that the more
prosperous the private sector, the more revenue the
Government will collect. In addition, a vibrant and
expanding private sector will create jobs, increase income
all round and help stabilise the social and political
climate. Certainly the economy benefits as evidenced by
Malaysia's high growth.
6. Clearly public sector collaboration is not altruistic.
It is self-serving for both sides to quite a considerable
extent. After all for the Government 30 percent of the
profits of the private sector go towards paying Government
taxes. The bigger the profit the bigger will be the tax.
The people gain through Government development spending made
possible by the bigger revenue collected.
7. That the Malaysian economy has performed remarkably
well in the past seven years with real GDP exceeding 8
percent each year is therefore not an accident. In the
first half of this year, real GDP actually strengthened to
9.6 percent compared with a projected 8.5 percent and the
9.2 percent in 1994. This strong growth was primarily
attributable to the continued strong performance of the
private sector in manufacturing, construction and services.
Contribution towards growth through Government spending is
relatively small. In addition the inflation rate remains
uniformly low and was 3.5 percent for the first eight months
of the year compared to 3.7 percent in 1994.
8. The success of the Malaysian economy is also due to the
fiscal policies adopted by the Government. The Malaysian
Government has assisted Malaysian businessmen through
continued tax reforms involving income tax cuts as well as
selective fiscal incentives to promote productive
investments in new areas. Apart from the macro-economic
policies and those directed at alleviating supply
constraints, administrative measures have been undertaken to
curb unethical trading practices as well as to enhance
supply.
9. As a corollary to the Malaysia Incorporated Policy the
Government introduced the Privatisation Policy, the
implementation of which saw some 168 projects, including the
North-South Highway, power generation and distribution, and
telecommunication. With the implementation of this policy
the Malaysian Government has been able to improve the
efficiency and productivity of almost all of the entities
that were privatised. As a result of privatisation, the
Public sector was able to save a total of RM70.2 billion in
capital expenditure and RM6.9 billion annually in operating
expenditure. A total of 96,800 jobs have been created.
Directly and indirectly the privatised projects have
contributed to the growth of the Malaysian economy. In
addition, more than 93,000 Government employees have moved
to the private sector thus reducing the salary bill of the
Government. With these savings the Government has been able
to provide more funds for health, education and poverty
eradication programmes. Privatisation has also contributed
to about a quarter of the market capitalisation of the Kuala
Lumpur Stock Exchange.
10. Malaysia does not plan to be developed only in the
economic sense. We believe that it must be a nation that is
developed socially, spiritually, psychologically and
culturally. This too means that we are working towards the
goal of being a united and cohesive nation practising social
justice and political stability while upholding the
principles of caring for one another.
11. The publication of this book "Malaysia Incorporated"
hopefully will provide foreigners and locals alike useful
insights into the potential of Malaysia as a centre of
business activities with huge investment opportunities. I
take this opportunity to thank MITSUI for sponsoring the
translation of this book and for organising this morning's
event.
12. On that note I hereby officially launch this book "The
Malaysian Incorporated" - the Japanese version. Thank you.
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