Engagement Session With Chief Secretary To The Goverment On World Bank Doing Business Report

Bismillaahirrahmaanirahim

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, Salam Sejahtera dan Salam 1Malaysia

Yang Berbahagia Tan Sri Yong Poh Kon, Co-Chair of PEMUDAH,

PEMUDAH Members,

Respondents of the World Bank Doing Business Report,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you very much for your kind presence today at this small yet significant gathering. I am supposed to attend the Economic Council meeting today scheduled for 9.30 am to 12.30 pm, but when I spoke with the Prime Minister about this session, he said that I should participate at this PEMUDAH-led discussion and I therefore left the Economic Council meeting early. I know that all of you are busy with your schedule and I appreciate your time and effort in attending this session today. Your presence here this morning proves that you are willing to participate and provide accurate information for the World Bank Doing Business survey for the sake of the country. For this, I thank you again.

Ladies and gentlemen,

2. Four years ago on 7 February 2007 when we started PEMUDAH, the goal was to improve the ease of doing business in Malaysia and to enhance our nation’s overall competitiveness and attractiveness as an investment destination. The beauty of PEMUDAH lies in its close public and private sector collaboration, in setting change to address issues in public service delivery to further improve the business environment in Malaysia.

3. The World Bank Doing Business Report serves as a basis for PEMUDAH’s work. Though we are not driven by the rankings alone, it provides us the opportunity to see how much we have progressed and more importantly, the effectiveness of our initiatives. From the Doing Business Report, we are able to gauge Malaysia’s efforts in comparison with other nations to see where we stand and what needs to be done to further improve ourselves.

4. Success in the rankings will not be meaningful and may lie just on paper if the work done is not felt by the beneficiaries. Therein lays the challenge for PEMUDAH:

– to make sure that the initiatives made are felt and made known to the rakyat and target beneficiaries.

Ladies and gentlemen,

5. Being respondents of the World Bank Doing Business Report, your role is vital in determining how Malaysia performs in the report. It is vitally important to the country to make sure that accurate information is given to give the true picture of what is happening in this country.

6. This morning you had the opportunity to listen from our distinguished panelists on the improvements made in the area of Starting a Business, Dealing with Construction Permits, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts. Through the work of PEMUDAH:

-The time taken to register a property has been substantially reduced to 1 day from   more than 41 days previously.

– The time taken to start a business has also been reduced to 3 days from 11 days previously.

– Through the One-Stop-Centre (OSC) at the Local Councils, approvals for development projects have now been expedited to 47 days as the decision-making process has been streamlined.

– The introduction of the New Commercial Courts (NCC) has expedited the disposal of commercial cases within 200 days as compared to several years previously.

7. Over the past 4 years, PEMUDAH has contributed to improvements on many other fronts:

— the review of important policies such as:
– the Foreign Investment Committee (FIC) Guidelines,
– Distributive Trade Guidelines.

— PEMUDAH contributed ideas which led to the setting up of the New Commercial Courts;
— worked to make improvements to the Malaysia My Second Home Programme;
— and various aspects of Immigration procedures.

8. In keeping itself relevant to the needs of the times, PEMUDAH focused on Immigration issues especially in areas to facilitate employment of foreign knowledge workers in the country. Among the initiatives undertaken were:
–  removal of age limit for expatriates especially for those qualified and has valuable working experience;
– removal of cooling off period for both expatriates and skilled foreign workers;
– automatic approval for expatriates with monthly salaries of more than RM 8,000;
– expatriates can be considered for Permanent Residence (PR) status after living in Malaysia for 5 years;
– foreign spouse of a Malaysian citizen can work or be involved in any form of business in Malaysia under the Long Term Social Visit Pass (LTSP).

9. PEMUDAH were also involved:
-towards enactment of the Competition Act 2010 and Competition Commission Act 2010 which were passed by Parliament in May 2010;
– revision of the Companies Act which will be tabled to Parliament in 2011.

10. These initiatives to reduce time and lengthy procedures in the respective indicators require radical changes which involve hard work and determination to succeed. There must be a collective effort by all involved to come together and discuss on the best way forward.

11. The whole idea of PEMUDAH is inclusiveness where every stakeholder, the Government as well as the private sector and others, offer their view where a broad range of ideas are deliberated.

12. The work of PEMUDAH and the Government will be futile if the people are unable to benefits from the improvements. PEMUDAH want to continue to strive and focus on the outcome and impact of the good work that has been done and to listen directly from people like you.

I thank you for your attention.