GEORGE TOWN – The Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (MICCI) northern chapter has called on the Penang government to help correct the current mismatch between education and the needs of the industry.
Other items listed in its wish list include reducing the existing bureaucracy and cost of doing business, promoting tourism and the education sectors as well as to address the scarcity of land here.
Its chairman Michel Van Crombrugge said that there is a need to expand focal economic sectors such as the electrical and electronics areas, and to ensure that Penang is a liveable city under its capital George Town’s Unesco status as a World Heritage Site.
“The pandemic has tested humanity and the resolve to combat it. It is too early to claim victory despite the significant strides to live with it. We must, however, plan for the future.”
He said this in his opening address at the recently held Penang Future Forward Summit, which was co-organised by the KSI Strategic Institute for the Asia Pacific and Wawasan Open University (WOU).
He said that the pandemic has caused a need for people to be resilient and to work towards a sustainable economy, which is important for the future.
MICCI is the oldest chamber in the country, founded in 1837 with close to 1,000 corporate members from 30 different nationalities.
Former Penang chief minister Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon, who is now WOU education foundation chairman, said that there is much to extract from the one-day summit, which saw overwhelming response.
In view of the pandemic, Koh, who made his first public appearance in recent years, said the state needs to generate new ideas to take it forward.
Recalling the state’s chequered past, Koh said that Penang has grown to become the “Silicon Valley of the East”, from its humble beginning in 1971 where his predecessor the late Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu invited multinationals to the shores.
“The 1980s and 1990s were strong years when our small and medium enterprises first became suppliers to the multinationals before they became global suppliers.”
They were competing in the value chain as global suppliers, using automation, and creating an ecosystem that is still inviting to investors today, he said.
The former academician said Penang is also endowed with two great assets – nature and culture.
“But for the younger generation now, there is also a need to urgently manage climate change and foil future environmental degradation,” Koh said.
He also said the future is about harnessing the industrial ecosystem and the assets that the state has built by leveraging on its human capital to promote education and entrepreneurship while encouraging the people to work hard.
“Penang as a state must look beyond her shores to the northern region, to the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle, and into Asean, regionally,” he said. – The Vibes, November 9, 2021
