Pemudah Helps Lift Malaysia's International Rankings

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia), July 18 (Bernama) -- The Special Task Force to Facilitate Business (Pemudah) will continue to help lift Malaysia's international rankings in terms of achievements, competitiveness and doing business by simplifying processes and reducing costs, said Chief Secretary to the Government, Dr Ali Hamsa. Ali, who is also Pemudah Chairman, said the task force embraced its tenth-year milestone in 2017 with stronger determination, renewed commitment and greater vigour to address and resolve issues that impacted time and costs of doing business and promote good regulatory practices for businesses. "Pemudah continued to track various initiatives to improve doing business climate with ministries, agencies and stakeholders. The coming into effect of the new Companies Act 2016 on Jan 31 this year is an example of the reforms undertaken for incorporation, with the aim of simplifying processes, reducing cost and waiting time including contract permits. "Another initiative includes implementation of five modules in the e-Tanah system on June 19 this year for Kuala Lumpur which has improved the time taken in the land title search, company search and winding-up search through a single point. The system is expected to roll out to other states in Peninsular Malaysia in the next few years," he told reporters after launching the Pemudah Annual Report 2016 here Tuesday. Pemudah, which has highly qualified and capable individuals from both the public and private sectors, was established on Feb 7, 2007. Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers President, Saw Choo Boon, is the Co-Chair of the task force. He said Malaysia remained the most competitive economy among developing countries in Asia and had been ranked commendably in the 2016-2017 editions of the Global Competitive Report, World Competitiveness Yearbook and Doing Business Report. "However, in this increasingly competitive world, we must not rest on our laurels. We will continue to dissect the causes of the slips in ranking indicators, and make immediate improvements though the drop in overall rankings was also due to factors beyond the government's ambit," he said. The World Bank Doing Business Report 2017 ranks Malaysia at 23rd position ahead of economies such as Thailand (46th), Indonesia (91st), Japan (34th), China (78th), France (29th), Switzerland (31st) and India (130th). Among ASEAN countries, Malaysia ranked second after Singapore. "Although Malaysia is placed 23rd out of 190 economies with a Distance-to-Frontier in the World Bank Doing Business Report 2017, compared to 22nd out of 189 economies in 2016, we have suggested more engagements on improving the indicator of doing business with ease. "We hope to increase our position in 2018 although there is a new economy of United Arab Emirates in the list. Insya Allah (God Willing), Malaysia will be among the highly competitive nation on ease of doing business," he said. -- BERNAMA