BAGAN SERAI: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim wants the approval process to attract foreign investments and development projects for the benefit of the people to be expedited.
Anwar, who is also the Finance Minister, said that the government's ability to provide the necessary infrastructure is one of the key factors potential investors consider when deciding to invest in the country.
He also said that, rather than just comparing the government's performance with previous years, the government should also compare the country's performance with other nations to accurately evaluate its progress.
"I proposed this to the Cabinet that can we compare not only with the previous year but also with neighbouring countries like Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore so that we can evaluate if we are efficient or not.
"When we make comparisons, there are indeed one or two areas where we are quite efficient, but there are many areas where we are somewhat lagging behind...
"We must learn from these weaknesses and apply fresh efforts, with new regulations and a new standard operating procedure (SOP)," he said in his speech when performing the groundbreaking ceremony of the Kerian Integrated Green Industrial Park (KIGIP) here today.
Anwar also cited the multi-billion ringgit investment by Infineon Technologies as well as other major companies such as Google, Microsoft dan Amazon Web Services as examples to drive home his point.
"Alhamdulillah, we managed to bring these companies to Malaysia since we are one of the countries with good performance and speed in approvals.
"This (Malaysia's performance) has helped us to lure in major investment into our country," he said.
Anwar also cited the Residensi Suria Madani in Taman Desa in Kuala Lumpur, which was launched yesterday.
"Kuala Lumpur City Hall approved it within 45 days... a record since before independence until now, as approval usually takes between eight months to a year and two months," he said.
Anwar also said Malaysia needs to learn from India, where the country not only focuses on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), but also recognises the importance of general arts fields in the employment ecosystem within the digital industry and artificial intelligence (AI).
"In the past, we emphasised that everything must be STEM graduates, vocational secondary school graduates, or TVET.
"However, there is also a need to include general arts graduates, who can be trained to follow some of these courses (for projects under KIGIP)," he said