Recently, Anwar was quoted to have said the revised 2023 unity government budget will be focusing on small and medium enterprises (SME) as well as the green and digital economy.
Now that he has announced that his government will prioritize the growth and sustainability of SMEs in the country, very soon and hopefully, the public will be hearing or learning of companies who are under-the-radar makers of a range of industrial products in Malaysia.
It is these companies that silently are making up the bulk of the SME sector in the country.
Businesses that don’t depend much on assistance from the government – not because they did not seek assistance, but because they know that any such attempts will be an exercise in futility - but overlooked due to the 'exclusiveness' practiced by the civil service and the past successive governments.
In fact, a sizeable portion of these SMEs are just beginning their best years, and they have the best potential to reinvigorate manufacturing—sustainably and inclusively—in the country, going forward.
And their ability to continue operating without much help from the government during the pandemic speaks volume of their resilience. Not that they have been getting much help from the government before the pandemic.
Long ignored by the government, they have been flourishing on their own.
For the last 30 years, these SMEs were not well understood, not appreciated with an apparent lack of awareness of the immense value they brought and can bring to the country, the people, and the communities where they operate in.
They began to develop and have this feeling of being unwanted, operating the economy of yesterday.
With this commitment from the PM, hopefully, the moods of SMEs in this country will now shift to optimism and possibilities.
For those who have been following the development of SMEs in this country, they are really the heartbeat of this country’s economy.
It is a great, vibrant sector that creates a lot of jobs and a lot of livelihoods.
Every one of them is an unsung hero on their own merits, on the value they have created for the ecosystem and for their customers locally and overseas.
People always talk about IT companies that are known for innovation, and great at innovation with software and technology.
On the other side, there is also an equally great set of companies who are SMEs that are great at innovation, and manufacturing-oriented, yet no one associated innovation with this set of companies.
They make real products that affect people’s real livelihoods, but no one talked about them.
Everyone associates the SMEs with the technologies and business models and strategies of yesteryears.
They don't have the characteristic of those IT companies that can have a meteoric rise and a meteoric fall and are much loved by the investing community everywhere.
The SMEs in this country work hard for their money.
Every time they achieved an improvement be it in securing a large customer or achieving efficiencies in their processes, it is because they have driven a true performance improvement.
The toughest part for Anwar to realize his aspiration will be addressing the lack of awareness amongst the civil service around these SMEs.
They are all around the country but yet very few, more so the civil service, actually know them.
They don’t make it to the covers of the business weekly or news blogs or industry awards.
Over a period of time, they have a talent deficit as people may not want to work there.
If the unity government is sincere and prioritizing SMEs in the next phase of growth for the country, the government can play the role of an enabler by investing in infrastructure, investing in people, and finding a way to drive a closer connection between these SMEs and the places where talent is available, like vocational and technical colleges.
The government can help to accelerate the growth of these SMEs.
Help them to scale.
As they scale up, it will drive job creation, innovation, and exports.
It will drive an amplification effect, where it will create jobs in adjacent industries, and help the local communities to prosper.
The government can help to map out the talent gap between supply and demand and how to close that gap in the coming years thus ensuring that there is a flow of talent, the flow of innovation, and a continued focus on enabling these companies to be successful.
Now that Anwar has identified SMEs as one of the priority focus areas, please act on them urgently.
Ultimately, these companies are going to be critical in creating a more inclusive economy in the country.
SMEs are the ones that will drive a lot of innovation and therefore job creation.
FLK is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
