THE National Entrepreneurship Policy 2030 hopes to inculcate a culture of entrepreneurship in order to drive this sector to contribute 50 per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030.
Entrepreneur Development Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Redzuan Yusof said the Entrepreneur Development Ministry (MED) has tapped into the voices at the grassroots and looked at the reality on the ground since they embarked on the National Entrepreneurship Framework (NEF) in November last year.
“Society needs to be developed holistically, with focus on empowering the B40 group above racial issues alone,“ he said, adding that the ministry has also delved further into the industries that need to be given more incentives to spur their development.
Redzuan said the development of the policy was unprecedented in relation to the evolving nature of business in the current technology-driven world and entrepreneurship climate.
“With this policy, we aim to create a culture of entrepreneurship, to encourage entrepreneurs to become job creators and to guide them on the sectors that they can venture in,” he said.
He said since Independence in 1957, there were various policies drafted such as the New Economic Policy and the National Development Policy, but none of them were specific to entrepreneurship development.
“There is a need to share the prosperity and the country’s wealth. We need to give more training to passionate entrepreneurs. They also need to put in place good practices of being disciplined, confident, compete healthily and become outstanding in their own way,” he said.
Redzuan urged entrepreneurs to challenge themselves as the ministry tried to implement more strategies to change their mindsets.
“The strategy of wait and see is unproductive. For example, in the Felda economic model, settlers were used to planting trees and waiting for several years to harvest their crops as well as to utilise idle lands,” he said.
“Improvements were made to allow them to make full use of their time, by introducing intercropping. This strategy of being productive, when frequently implemented will become a culture. This is the thinking that we want to inculcate among entrepreneurs,” he said.
He said the policy would also adopt a strategy to get the B40 group to focus on low hanging fruits so they could increase their income quickly.
“One of the examples is the halal food industry. Some entrepreneurs have started to look for opportunities to market their products for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics,” he said.
He said there were various opportunities that can be created from the halal industry. For example, in the Tokyo Olympics, as the Japanese are very strict on halal goods, sertu (removal of non-Halal element) industry was created.
“Likewise, when the Japanese wanted to promote Wagyu beef, we encourage our entrepreneurs to process the meat here,” he said.
Redzuan also encouraged entrepreneurs to tap into IR 4.0 and e-commerce.
“The Chinese e-commerce market platform Alibaba transacted about US$7 trillion (RM28.98 trillion) through its payment gateway in 2017. As the transactions were done abroad, we missed out on the opportunity to get revenue from taxes although we are among the consumers,” he said.
Redzuan said if Malaysians were still taking baby steps on this matter, we would lose out as innovation will not wait for us.
He said the ministry has also embarked on an initiative to reduce the function of middle persons by having wholesale centres managed by the entrepreneurs themselves.
“The entrepreneurs will have more confidence that their products will enter the market so there is a confidence of market security,” he said.
When it comes to investment, Redzuan also said the new policy will prevent the country from losing out on investments due to tedious bureaucratic processes and not giving investors sufficient information on business potential.
“Opportunity does not come easy and we must be able to grab it when there is a potential,” he said.
He said in comparison to our neighbouring countries, Vietnam, for example, has created a business-friendly ecosystem, thus attracting more investors to come to its shores.
Moreover, in giving out more example, he said an investment opportunity can be approved within 45 days in Russia and the country had also improvised on the adopted entrepreneurship model from this country.
“Our ministry will announce a private initiative to speed up the process of getting investors to come in as entrepreneurs. The ministry will also create an ecosystem for strategic partners to also train entrepreneurs under Industry Sponsorship Programme,” he said.
On a separate matter, Redzuan said under this policy, the function of agencies across ministry on the entrepreneurship activities has been streamlined.
“There will be more sharing of information and data across ministries and reduction of overlapping functions,” he said.
For example, we are working together with Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry (MOA) and International Trade and Industry Ministry for us to get information on the type of investments that comes to Malaysia.
“We also want to know on the amount of investments and look into the core competencies that we can bring forward to develop and participate in projects that the big foreign investors have their eyes on,” he said.
He said MED had also recently worked together with the MOA to help the B40 group in Sarawak.
“Recently, I launched a pineapple breeding nursery in Sarawak. MED helped to deal with bureaucracy on bringing in the MD2 pineapple seed,” he said.
“As this project is a private initiative, the ministry does not have to give out more funds. The MOA will ensure that the group is closely monitored and we will ask for feedback on the progress.
He said after that, MED will then compile the data and gauge the development of each entrepreneur.
He hoped that this new policy will achieve its five specific targets to mould this country into an Entrepreneurial Nation by 2030.
“The targets served as the benchmark. If we can surpass that, Alhamdulillah, (I am very much grateful),” he said.