In the latest (2014-2015) Global Competitiveness Report, Malaysia ranked ahead of some more developed economies such as Austria, Australia, France and South Korea when it was placed at the 20th spot, out of 144 nations. This is a big improvement as last year, the country was ranked at the 24th spot.
The Global Competitiveness Report was designed to build a shared understanding of the main strengths and weaknesses of the various economies covered. This has become a formulating tool for policymakers and business leaders in the improvement of economic policies and institutional reforms.
According to the report, the goal for countries such as Malaysia is to transform the economy to become more knowledge-driven in order to avoid the middle-income trap. Malaysia makes its way into the top 20 for the first time since the current GCI methodology was introduced in 2006 and remains the highest ranked among the developing Asian economies.
According to a comment by Malaysia Productivity Corp (MPC) director-general Datuk Mohd Razali Hussain in the Business Circle, the government will continue to intensify efforts in the pillars of macroeconomic environment, labour market efficiency and technological readiness.
“Macroeconomic environment recorded a drop of six places to no.44. Last year it was at no. 38. Our area of concern is the government budget balance and general government debt,” he said.
On technological readiness, Mohd Razali said MPC would like to propose the establishment of a task force to improve technological readiness in the country. Among the initiatives that need to be intensified included increased mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 population, international Internet bandwidth and fixed broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 population.
Meanwhile, the general business environment of Malaysia continues to improve, according to Chris Eng, Head of Research / Head of Products & Alternative Investments, Investment Management Division of Etiqa Insurance & Takaful.
“This is evident in the strong GDP growth in the first half of 2014, where Malaysia recorded the highest growth rate of 6.3% year-on-year versus its major ASEAN peers such as Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines. This is a surprising development given that Malaysia has tended to be overshadowed by its less developed peers in terms of GDP growth since the mid-2000s,” said Eng.
Story and quote from: Coconuts KL and The Rakyat Post
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