Selangor Journal

Industry4WRD: elevating nation’s competitiveness and productivity

By Batrisyia Jay

KUALA LUMPUR – Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad launched the National Policy on Industry 4.0, known as Industry4WRD at the MITI Tower today.

The National Policy on Industry 4.0 is Malaysia’s response to the call for digital transformation of the manufacturing sector and its related services.

Speaking at the launch of Industry4WRD at the MITI tower, the Prime Minister said when the government introduced Vision 2020, it had set out the challenges that Malaysia needed to overcome, to reach a developed nation status within its own time frame.

“These challenges calls for Malaysia to be innovative and forward-looking as we seek to build an economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient, based on the concept of shared prosperity.

“We have lagged behind and in order to catch up, we need to run faster than our competitors. It is like a marathon, while we pace ourselves, we still need to be several steps faster or we will be consistently behind,” he said.

A four-pronged strategy to boost Malaysia’s manufacturing sector via higher productivity, contribution, innovation and more high-skilled workers.

The four specific goals announced at the launch are:

1. To increase the level of productivity in the manufacturing industry per person from RM106,647 by 30%;

2. To elevate the absolute contribution of the manufacturing sector to the economy from RM254bil to RM392bil.

3. To strengthen the country’s innovation capacity and capability as reflected by the improvement in Global Innovation Index ranking from 35th spot to top 30 and;

4. To increase the number of high-skilled workers in the manufacturing sector from 18% to 35%.

Dr Mahathir said contemporary economies are now dominated by modern service sector activities.

However, the most robust and resilient economies globally retain strong manufacturing sectors.

“In the last five years, the manufacturing sector has been contributing about 23% to the GDP. Further, about 98.5% of Malaysian SMEs are in the manufacturing sector.

“It is the manufacturing sector that allows Malaysia to consistently demonstrate dynamism and resilience to grow, while attracting foreign direct investments.

“With this in mind, the Industry4WRD policy was developed to propel SMEs forward, so that they can be agile and adaptable to meet the challenges posed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” he said.

Mahathir added that a readiness to adapt to the Industry 4.0 Revolution would have a bearing on economic success and Malaysia needs to quickly embrace it to propel productivity and further enhance competitiveness.

“I believe that this can all be achieved through the Industry4WRD: National Policy on Industry 4.0, which would enable the manufacturing sector to move into Industry 4.0 and along the way contribute to fulfilling Malaysia’s commitment to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” he said.

This was said in his keynote address at the launch of the Industry4WRD National Policy on Industry 4.0 here, today.

The policy outlines 13 broad strategies for Malaysia to embark on a journey that will transform the manufacturing industry landscape over the next decade.

Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Darell Leiking said this will further elevate the nation’s competitiveness and productivity.

Organised in collaboration with the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) in the spirit of public-private partnership, the event was attended by more than 1,000 participants including cabinet ministers, Chief Ministers, Ambassadors, senior Government officials, industry leaders and academicians.

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