KPJ Healthcare Berhad

Competitive economic environment calls for productivity and innovation.

AKI inspires Malaysian companies

AKI 2014, which recognises outstanding performance of companies from the
manufacturing and services sectors, reflects the joint purpose of the government and the private sector to ensure that Malaysia would continue to take a prominent role in the global economy.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the business community's drive to be world class is at the heart of the National Transformation Programmes, which is based on the acknowledgement that Malaysia must change if the nation is to maintain its economic momentum and reach developed nation status by 2020.

 "There is now a need to take Malaysia and our global competitiveness to the next level —a level that is not just based on economic imperatives of increasing value creation and harnessing talent for innovative production, but also on social imperatives of greater preservation and accountability to ensure sustainability for our future generations," he said.

At the recently held Industry Excellence Awards (AKI) 2014, Najib said the capital economy and the people's economy cannot be separated, as they exist in a symbiotic relationship, and that we must decide what needs to be done today so as to put our stamp on tomorrow.

On the other hand, he said the AKI awards reflected the joint purpose of the government and the private sector to ensure that Malaysia would continue to take a prominent role in the global economy. He stated that the achievements of those honoured represent the ambitions and aspirations of not just the stakeholders, but also all Malaysians.

The AKI series, which began in 1991, was introduced by the Ministry of Trade and Industry with the aim of recognising Malaysian companies with outstanding performances and encouraging companies to continuously improve the quality of their products and services.

Over the years, AKI has gained a reputation of being one of Malaysia's premiere corporate recognition programmes. In 2012, AKI went through a rebranding process, including a review of the whole concept and mechanism, the category of awards, the evaluation and assessment procedures, as well as incentive for winners. Under the rebranded AKI 2014 awards was Sunway Integrated Properties Sdn Bhd, which bagged the Prime Minister's Award and Services Award (Open Category).
Other winners from the services sector were KPJ Ipoh Specialist Hospital (Category 1), Open University Malaysia (Category 2), Sunway Constructions Sdn Bhd (Category 3) and Prestariang (Category 4).

For the manufacturing sector,the winners were PHN Industry Sdn Bhd (Category 1), Mega Fortris (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (Category 2),Benithem Sdn Bhd (Category 3),and Robert Bosch (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (Open Category); while Petzl Manufacturing Malaysia Sdn Bhd received the Most Promising Award. During his speech earlier, Najib
called upon the business community to have a stronger emphasis on productivity and innovation in running their organisations, because these two elements are the key to success in today's extremely competitive economic environment.

He stated that every year, a number of international organisations such as the World Bank, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Swiss Institute of Management Development publish global competitiveness reports, in which they compare the ability of nations to compete in the international market. "I am proud to say that all these
three organisations have issued reports showing that the efforts that we have been making to improve our competitiveness have been effective," he said.

According to Najib, all these improvements have been made\ possible with the initiatives undertaken through the government transformation programme (GTP) and economic transformation programme (ETP), along with public and private sector collaboration through the Special Task Force to Facilitate Business (PEMUDAH).

He said that although Malaysia's rise in terms of global competitiveness is very welcome news, other nations are putting in effort to move up the ranks too.

The prime minister said, as chairman of ASEAN this vear, Malaysia will be focusing on young people, reducing nontariff barriers and helping small and medium enterprises.

"We live in a regional market of 620 million people —a total that is far bigger than the European Union, for instance. I would like to encourage all local companies to take full advantage of the manifold opportunities that are there, waiting to be realised."

He urged local companies to embrace the challenge of moving bevond the national boundaries, and he assured the companies that the government will give them every
support as they seek to build and expand