EPU aims for 5.5% annual growth in 10MP

KUALA LUMPUR: The Economic Planning Unit (EPU) is aiming to achieve an annual growth rate of 5.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) during the duration of the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) from 2011-2015, said EPU’s director-general Datuk Noriyah Ahmad.

Noriyah said the growth rate was “doable” as compared to the rate the country had experienced previously, stating that the private sector would play the lead role as the driver to achieve the growth rate.

“The government’s role is to facilitate,” she told reporters after delivering her presentation entitled A New Approach to the 10th MP at the National Asset & Facility Management Convention (NAFAM) yesterday.

Noriyah expects the private sector to contribute more than 50% to the overall economic growth of the country. And to ensure the private sector was involved, Noriyah said the government was working on providing a better business environment in the country such as the liberalisation of various rules and processes.

However, she said many foreign investors were still staying on the sidelines as they were not aware of Malaysia’s recent liberalisation mesures.

“It takes time, we need to publicise (the liberalisation),” she said.

Seeing the potential of the private sector in the country’s future growth, the government will be undertaking a second phase of privatisation process for business, enterprise agency or public service from the public sector to be made private through the 10MP.

The first phase was undertaken back in the 1990s, which Noriyah said had produced good results with only some minor glitches.

Asked if a list of the companies that would be privatised would be made available to the public, Noriyah said there were no current plans to do so, reminiscing that when the list was produced for the first phase, it had created chaos.

She also said operating expenses of all ministries would see a 15% cut to ensure that the government was able to meet its target deficit of 5.2% next year.

On the 10MP that is to be presented to the cabinet by June next year, Noriyah said during her presentation that the economic unit under the Prime Minister’s Department was undertaking a more integrated outcome-based approach to ensure a more suitable development.

“Through integrated outcome-based approach, there must be a systematic linkage between national development planning with the budgeting systems and personnel performance with monitoring and evaluation as the support management tool,” she said.

She mentioned that there was a lack of an integrated planning scheme between government ministries, as they tended to plan independently.

“We thought it will fall into place somehow, but now we have to make sure,” she said.

Citing the example of the plans to build a RM700 million national cancer institution, which would take two to three years to complete, she said the Public Services Department (PSD) would only start looking for the needed human resources for the institution after the building was 60% completed.

“When decisions are made, everything should be looked at wholly, the opex, capex and human resource. It may turn out not to be worthwhile,” she quipped.