SMEs Need To Venture Into New Sources Of Economic Wealth
http://newscentre.msc.com.my/articles/651/1/SMEs-Need-To-Venture-Into-New-Sources-Of-Economic-Wealth/Page1.html
By Hanis Sayuti
Published on 24 July 2008
KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 (Bernama) -- Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to venture into new sources of economic wealth to compete successfully in the domestic and global markets.
Source: Bernama
KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 (Bernama) -- Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to venture into new sources of economic wealth to compete successfully in the domestic and global markets.
The SME Annual Report 2007, released here Thursday, said among some of the new areas were halal products and services, franchising and information and communications technology (ICT).
It said the SMEs needed to improve on capacity and capability by investing in appropriate new technologies and intensifying the ongoing training of human resources.
"This is because human capital development is expected to further spur the development of business start-ups and increase the supply of skilled and knowledge workers," it said.
The report said the government has put in place various measures to enhance the efficiences and competitiveness of the SMEs.
"The SMEs assume an important role in the economic growth of the country and various programmes including incentives in the form of grants and soft loans are made available to encourage them in the development of innovative products and to automate processess.
"This is to enable them to keep pace with global demand for high quality and competitively-priced products and services," it said.
The report said the services sector, which contributed 53 percent to gross domestic product in 2007, was expected to improve further this year driven by strategies to boost retail spending, retail activities, advertising and promotional campaigns.
It said the tourism industry was expected to record RM49 billion in revenue and 21.5 million tourist arrivals on the continuous promotional efforts from both the public and private sectors to make the country a prime tourist destination.
"Tourism receipts are expected to contribute more than 10 percent to the total sales value of the retail industry," it said.
It said while the ICT industry was on target to experience productivity growth there would be a slight slowdown in ICT spending in 2008 due to increase competition from vendors in the market.
"Continuous efforts to promote Malaysia as an ICT hub and the growing importance of shared services and outsourcing (SSO) are among the factors that can increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the sector," it said.
The report said the SSO industry was expected to continue this strong growth and help create job opportunities and more knowledge workers in the ICT industry.
"Apart from SSO, emerging technologies like mobile number portability, metro Ethernet and web 2.0 are also expected to drive the ICT market in Malaysia," it said.
According to the report, the agriculture sector was expected to record productivity growth of about 3.8 percent this year supported by the current favourable performance of the export-oriented commodity industries.
"This is further supported by the implementation of high impact projects in the newly-launched economic regions and the establishment of more permanent food production parks, aquaculture industrial zones and target area concentration to expedite the domestic food production programmes," it said.
The report said the pace of research and development (R&D) would be further intensify and more market-driven through collaborations with private sector-led R&D centres to promote world-class agricultural technology capable of boosting the efficiency, productivity and quality of agricultural products.
It said biotechnology development would be stepped up to produce quality planting materials and other areas of biotechnology including food, agro-biotechnology, and biopharmaceuticals such as antibodies and vaccines and bioagnostics.
KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 (Bernama) -- Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to venture into new sources of economic wealth to compete successfully in the domestic and global markets.
The SME Annual Report 2007, released here Thursday, said among some of the new areas were halal products and services, franchising and information and communications technology (ICT).
It said the SMEs needed to improve on capacity and capability by investing in appropriate new technologies and intensifying the ongoing training of human resources.
"This is because human capital development is expected to further spur the development of business start-ups and increase the supply of skilled and knowledge workers," it said.
The report said the government has put in place various measures to enhance the efficiences and competitiveness of the SMEs.
"The SMEs assume an important role in the economic growth of the country and various programmes including incentives in the form of grants and soft loans are made available to encourage them in the development of innovative products and to automate processess.
"This is to enable them to keep pace with global demand for high quality and competitively-priced products and services," it said.
The report said the services sector, which contributed 53 percent to gross domestic product in 2007, was expected to improve further this year driven by strategies to boost retail spending, retail activities, advertising and promotional campaigns.
It said the tourism industry was expected to record RM49 billion in revenue and 21.5 million tourist arrivals on the continuous promotional efforts from both the public and private sectors to make the country a prime tourist destination.
"Tourism receipts are expected to contribute more than 10 percent to the total sales value of the retail industry," it said.
It said while the ICT industry was on target to experience productivity growth there would be a slight slowdown in ICT spending in 2008 due to increase competition from vendors in the market.
"Continuous efforts to promote Malaysia as an ICT hub and the growing importance of shared services and outsourcing (SSO) are among the factors that can increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the sector," it said.
The report said the SSO industry was expected to continue this strong growth and help create job opportunities and more knowledge workers in the ICT industry.
"Apart from SSO, emerging technologies like mobile number portability, metro Ethernet and web 2.0 are also expected to drive the ICT market in Malaysia," it said.
According to the report, the agriculture sector was expected to record productivity growth of about 3.8 percent this year supported by the current favourable performance of the export-oriented commodity industries.
"This is further supported by the implementation of high impact projects in the newly-launched economic regions and the establishment of more permanent food production parks, aquaculture industrial zones and target area concentration to expedite the domestic food production programmes," it said.
The report said the pace of research and development (R&D) would be further intensify and more market-driven through collaborations with private sector-led R&D centres to promote world-class agricultural technology capable of boosting the efficiency, productivity and quality of agricultural products.
It said biotechnology development would be stepped up to produce quality planting materials and other areas of biotechnology including food, agro-biotechnology, and biopharmaceuticals such as antibodies and vaccines and bioagnostics.