WE'RE PRO-GROWTH, PRO-BUSINESS, NAJIB TELLS JAPANESE BUSINESS COMMUNITY

From Khairdzir Yunus

TOKYO, April 20 (Bernama) -- Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, who is
currently on a four-day official visit to Japan beginning Sunday, assured the
Japanese business community that his administration will be "pro-growth,
pro-business" in its approach.

"I hope Japanese businessmen will take advantage of the positive climate
that we are trying to develop in Malaysia," he said at a luncheon meeting in
conjunction with his first official visit to Japan, here Tuesday.

Najib, who is also Finance Minister, invited Japanese investors, who are
major investors in Malaysia since the 1970's, to invest and re-invest in
Malaysia to create high-value jobs for Malaysians such as in innovative
technology, green technology, nanotechnology and automation, among others.

"These are the types of investments we are searching and seeking for in
Malaysia," he said.
Earlier, he urged the Malaysian private sector to be the engine of growth
for the country.

Najib said it was observed that during the first economic crisis in 1997,
the private sector had taken a secondary role to the public sector, particularly
in the 1980s and most of the 1990s.

"I want this trend to reverse, I want the private sector to be the
engine of growth and to invest in new techonologies with a higher productivity,"
he said.

He said the government wanted to energise the local private sector and to
achieve a greater participation by the private sector, the government had
announced various policies and incentives to encourage the private sector to
take the lead in developing the Malaysian economy.

Some of the reforms that the government had undertaken include greater
liberalisation of 27 services sector as well as the financial sector, he said.

He said his administration had even taken measures to shorten the period of
starting a business in Malaysia from 11 days to three days and by the end of the
year to just one day.

"Part of the reform would be to enhance the government's efficiency to
process applications from the private sector including foreign investors," he
said.

He said additional moves by the government include the second wave of
privatisation which would include the selling of government-owned companies and
the Government Linked Companies (GLC) so that those companies could be taken by
private companies.

During the meeting, and later at a roundtable meeting with Japanese captains
of industry, Najib introduced to them the most significant reform which Malaysia
is undertaking, the New Economic Model (NEM).

He said the NEM that he unveiled last month was only the first part of a
two-stage process.

"The second part is identifying the key economic activities to transform
Malaysia to be a high-income nation," he added.
-- BERNAMA


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