MALAYSIA RANKS 21 IN GLOBAL COMPETITVENESS

KUCHING (Malaysia), May 4 (Bernama) -- Malaysia is ranked 21 in overall
performance out of 134 countries in global competitiveness in the World Economic
Forum's (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009.

Malaysia Productivity Corp (MPC) senior director, Lee Saw Hoon, said
Malaysia maintained its ranking from the previous year, in spite of the increase
in the number of countries from 131 to 134 countries.

Among the Asian countries, Malaysia was ranked 6th, after Singapore (5th),
Japan (9th), Hong Kong (11th), South Korea (13th) and Taiwan (17th) while among
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, Malaysia
is ahead of countries such as Ireland (22nd), New Zealand (24th), Luxembourg
(25th), and Spain (29th).

The top five countries in the Global Competitiveness Index are the US,
Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Singapore.

She said the WEF has noted that Malaysia, at 21st place, benefited from the
excellent functioning of its goods, labour and especially financial markets.

"Labour markets are efficient (19th) and at 23rd position, the goods markets
also function well, with healthy competition.

"The financial market is ranked 16th for its sophistication, backed by a
sound banking sector and a relative ease of access to various forms of finance
for business development," she said in her opening address at the seminar on
"Sustaining Malaysia's Productivity Corporation" here Monday.

Kuching is the capital city of East Malaysia state of Sarawak.

Lee said the report covered many countries and was more structured through
its 12 pillars of competitiveness.

"According to the report, Malaysia is in the efficiency-driven stage of
development, pillars such as higher education and training, goods market
efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market sophistication,
technological readiness and market size are accorded 50 per cent of the
weightage," he said.

Meanwhile, Lee said, the government would continue to be supportive in
facilating businesses towards enhancing their competitiveness, as the issues on
competitiveness had always been high on the government's agenda.

She said the public service delivery system, as a key component of national
competitiveness, would continuously be upgraded to meet with the higher
expectations of the private sector.

"Several measures have been initiated including the focus on human capital
development, total quality management, innovative and creative circles,
suggestion schemes, ISO standards, the Client Charter, quality of counter
services, manual of office procedures and desk files and the micro-accounting
system," she said.

Lee said MPC would continue to deliver high-impact services towards
achieving performance excellence to promote productivity and quality research,
training and systems development, productivity and quality promotion and the
sharing of best practices for the private and public sectors.

Meanwhile, senior economist/director, Global Competitiveness Network World
Economic Forum, Jennifer Blake, said Malaysia was endowed with a number of
competitive strengths, particularly its excellent health and primary education,
well-developed infrastructure, well-functioning markets and sophisticated and
innovative companies.

However, she said, there were a number of areas which could be improved, in
particular, the macroeconomic stability, insufficient higher education
attainment, and moderate level of technological readiness in the country.

"Improvements in these areas will llow Malaysia to improve its national
competitiveness and set itself more firmly on the path of sustainable growth and
development," she said when presenting her working paper, "Assessing Malaysia's
Competitiveness: Lessons from the global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009" here.
-- BERNAMA