Six Strategic Reform Initiatives announced

Reforms crucial to country’s competitiveness, sustainability of NEM agenda

KUALA LUMPUR: In a move to reassure the public and investors that the deep-seated reforms as laid out in the New Economic Model (NEM) will be carried out, the Government has announced six Strategic Reform Initiatives (SRIs) to boost the country's competitiveness.

The SRIs announced yesterday during the seventh update of the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) had been defined around reform areas versus the thematic grouping of eight SRIs identified by the National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) during the launch of the NEM in March last year.

These were the cross-cutting reforms that economists said were crucial to the country's competitiveness and the sustainability of the NEM agenda.
Idris: ‘The SRIs are the keys to a high-income nation.’

The SRIs identified to boost competitiveness were: public finance reform, the Government's role in business, human capital development, public service delivery, international standards and liberalisation, and bumiputra small-medium enterprises.

Among the more important targets set, the public finance SRI aims to create RM13bil in fiscal space to be realised via revenue generation and cost savings over a period of five years when fully implemented.

The six SRIs were clustered based on 37 policy measures recommended by the NEAC from a total of 51 policy suggestions. The remaining measures were included in the National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) and National Key Result Areas.

Datuk Seri Idris Jala, chief executive officer of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) within the Prime Minister's Department, said the rollout of the SRIs would reassure the public that the deep-seated reforms would be carried out.

“People often criticise the Government as being long on plans and promises, but short on delivery. We've gotten quite a lot of calls from the public on what had happened to the cross-cutting reforms of the NEM,” he said.

Idris said the SRIs encompassed the NKEAs, which were the drivers to ensure focus and the enablers to ensure competitiveness. “The SRIs are the keys to a high-income nation,” he added.

Idris, noting public criticism of the ETP implementation, said that ever since the ETP roadmap was launched last Oct 25, the NKEAs had progressed with 65 of the 131 identified entry point projects (EPPs) having taken off.

These EPPs have seen nearly RM170bil in committed investments, RM220.15bil in gross national income (GNI) with 362,396 jobs to be created.

Idris said all the NKEAs were on track to achieve their targets of cumulative investments of RM1.4 trillion, GNI impact of RM1.7 trillion and 3.3 million new jobs by 2020.

He said these achievements were no “pie in the sky” and that the transformation plan had shown sterling results.

“We're well under way and need to keep the momentum going,” Idris said, adding that something was happening to the economy with the stock market reaching an all-time high recently.