Saturday, September 22, 2007

Malaysia's Vision 2020

I just read a newspaper telling Malaysia vision in 2020. at glance i've thrown my imagination to Indonesia that ever arose its vision 2030 by Yayasan Forum Indonesia last time that predicted will be a fifth growing country in the world.

Malaysia's Vision 2020
The government of Malaysia has provided a clear vision to its companies and their employees: to reach the standard of living of industrialized countries by the year 2020. This plan, called Vision 2020, is accelerating Malaysia's shift to high-technology industries. Specific objectives include accelerated industrial restructuring, technological upgrading, human resource development, and industrial linking. Malaysia's seventh development plan emphasizes the capabilities of its manufacturing sector by producing higher-value-added products and developing workers better capable of meeting the requirements of more sophisticated manufacturing processes. The plan focuses on development of industry, academic, and government relationships. The government is developing preemployment schools to train employees with strong work ethics and loyalty to company and country. It has also developed high-tech industrial parks to allow for the concentration of industry, research and development, and academic institutions. The government is also supporting industry with technical training programs and research programs at universities.

The Penang Economic Council drafted the Penang Strategic Development Plan in 1991 to support Vision 2020. Specific strategies included the promotion of skill-intensive, technology-intensive, and high-value-added industries through building an R&D infrastructure, including technology parks, and a supportive culture with a qualified workforce. In order to attract skilled workers from other states and countries, Penang is creating a competitive wage policy that will change its manufacturing core competence from labor-intensive to capital-intensive manufacturing. Companies from Japan, the United States, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Germany invested over RM 15 billion (about $6 billion) in 1995. Malaysia continues to follow in the path of Singapore, developing close relationships with foreign and local industry participants. For example, Intel assembles its Pentium chips and does much of its packaging research and development in Malaysia, and Motorola has its premier packaging group in Malaysia.

Malaysia is a founding member of and plays a strong leadership role in ASEAN. The country is also involved in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Among the newly industrialized economies of East Asia, only Malaysia enjoys preferences under the General System of Preferences (GSP). GSP was intended to help developing countries grow their economies. It provides special access to first-world countries' markets, and industry protection measures that give local companies a competitive advantage. To attract companies and investments, Malaysia is reducing corporate tax rates from 32% to 30%. It will also reduce withholding taxes from 20% to 15% on interest payments made to nonresidents, and reduce the taxes on technical fees and royalties from 15% to 10%. Import duties are being reduced on more than 2,600 items, and sales tax on machinery parts and components and imported heavy machinery will be abolished.



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