ETP update

DSIJ with initial ETP Project Owners Speaking to the Press at Our Launch on 25 October 2010

Action speaks louder than words. And the Economic Transformation Programme is really about taking action and ensuring that action delivers results. Nearly five months since the Roadmap was launched, we are heartened to know that our hardwork is beginning to show the first signs of positive  results.

In particular, last Saturday, in The Star’s weekend business supplement, Tee Lin Say wrote a piece entitled, Private investments jump along with business loans, proof that we are certainly not patting ourselves in the back. According to the article,

WITH the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) gaining traction, economists are seeing some spillover effects in the country’s real private investments.
This forecast is backed by recent forward-looking indicators. For example, total approved investment in the manufacturing sector jumped 44.6% to RM47.2bil in 2010. Meanwhile, as of January this year, business loan growth was up 12.7% and capital goods rose 5.3%.
Furthermore, both private investment and net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows rebounded strongly by 13% to RM73.6bil and 448.6% to RM27.6bil respectively in 2010.

Certainly the launching of the Roadmap was just the start of the race. Understanding that it is critical to continuously build the momentum, we have worked at pushing for monthly Progress Updates. You see, even though the 131 Entry Point Projects have already been revealed in the Roadmap, it’s important to keep everyone on their toes and the Progress Update announcements work like a systematic scoreboard. So far we have announced 60 updates in 46 EPPs, 9 on October 25, 9 on November 30, 19 on January 11 and the latest on March 8 featured 23 projects.

Tee spoke to two senior economists and their feedback towards our efforts here are particularly noteworthy. AmResearch Sdn Bhd senior economist Manokaran Mottain has expressed optimism and that he was encouraged by the development of the ETP projects and the news-flow on implementation details. Quoting Tee’s article:

“The Government is taking proactive and bold steps towards transformation. This is a positive move to set the growth momentum needed in this decade,” says Manokaran.
He believes the Government has been continuously addressing the constraints that are hindering investment in the country.
This includes loss of competitiveness, complex licensing regulations, delays at one-stop approval, high cost of doing business, while also improving supporting infrastructures such as high-speed broadband services and shortage of skilled manpower both in the technical and professional spheres.
Manokaran says there are good reasons to be optimistic about the ETP, much more than the previous plans which had drawn knee-jerk skepticism.”

In the same piece, Tee wrote that CIMB research head of economics Lee Heng Guie estimates real private investment growth to rise by 9% to RM63.8bil in 2011.

(Lee) says that the near-term outlook for Malaysia’s private investment is probably brighter than generally appreciated, although the policymakers still need to further enhance the investment climate.
“A sustained private investment growth will provide a strong base to drive the pace of GDP expansion going forward. Private investment’s share to GDP will need to be raised to at least 15% from the current 9.6%,” says Lee.

DSIJ debriefing the PEMANDU team after the ETP launch at PWTC in October.

Even though the numbers and the early responses are encouraging, it is still far too premature for us to indulge in a session of self-praise. Bound by a certain discipline of action, the numbers serve to remind us of the necessity of constantly raising the bar.

The good news is 2020 is still 9 years away, and we have just only started. But more important is the shared understanding that to maintain this discipline of action, we have to consistently keep the pace and stay the course so that collectively as a Nation, we can reach the finishing line.