Malaysia in major push to slash red tape

Some architects complain it takes up to 16 months to get government approvals to build an office tower in Kuala Lumpur. By contrast, it takes just two weeks in Dubai.

In Malaysia's trade-dependent economy, things sometimes move at a snail's pace, but that could change following Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's latest initiative to dismantle stifling red tape and hasten the pace of his three-year-old reform agenda.

He recently handpicked a 23-member high-powered special task force to review rules to facilitate business. The members comprise top government officials and business leaders.

"Competition is the name of the game," said Malaysia's top bureaucrat, Mohamad Sidek Hassan, who was roped in by Abdullah to co-chair the panel, known by its Malay acronym Pemudah.

"If you want to be there, it's not good enough to be business as usual," he told Reuters in an interview.

Abdullah, possibly gearing up for general elections by early 2008, has also put his credibility at stake over the implementation of an ambitious $57 billion five-year development blueprint that he launched last March.

His government is also developing a Shenzen-styled economic region in the southern Johor state and has lined up other big infrastructure projects.

But analysts fear onerous red tape and petty bureaucracy could derail the spending plan, curtail economic growth and deter private investment.

"There's one thing about Malaysia. You may have good laws and good plans but the implementation is still a big question mark," said one fund manager at a domestic investment bank.

BACKFIRE?

Sidek, a veteran trade official before assuming his current job as the government's Chief Secretary, said Malaysia should not rest on its laurels despite being the world's 18th largest trading nation.

"We have to compete not only for foreign investors but also domestic investors," he said at his office in the sprawling administrative capital of Putrajaya. "Even our investors have the option of staying here or move somewhere else."

To illustrate the new spirit Abdulah is trying to infuse in the ranks of his administrators, he said the government recently arranged a session for ministers and high-ranking officials with Chan Kim, one of the authors of the best-selling management book "Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant".

"People (elsewhere) are approving things in 10 days. You cannot do it (here) in 10 days," said 56-year-old Sidek, who oversees Malaysia's 1.15-million-strong workforce of government employees.

He said the task force, which holds its inaugural meeting on Friday, hoped to eventually resolve all administrative and other issues hindering business.

"Nothing is sacrosanct. The PM had given us six months," he said. "Like all things, there's no end to it. But we can start with low-hanging fruits."

Some initiatives, such as the government payments system, have started to pay off, he said.

For example, the Prime Minister's Department paid 98.5 percent of its bills within seven days in January, down from as long as one month last year.

In terms of funding under the Ninth Malaysia Plan, the PM's Department is the biggest recipient and yet we can do this," Sidek said, referring to the five-year state development plan.

Some analysts questioned the need for the task force.

"More bureaucracy doesn't help to reduce bureaucracy," said political analyst Khoo Kay Peng. "It's difficult to really see significant improvement (within the six-month timeframe)."

"If nothing changes after six months, politically it will backfire," he said.


Malaysia.Abdullah red tape